LESSONS FROM CHILE´S SEISMIC HISTORY Magdalena Gil ...

CATASTROPHE AND STATE BUILDING:

LESSONS FROM CHILE´S SEISMIC HISTORY

Magdalena Gil-Ureta

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

2016

© 2016

Magdalena Gil-Ureta

All rights reserved

ABSTRACT

Catastrophe and State-Building: Lessons from Chile´s Seismic History

Magdalena Gil-Ureta

Catastrophes are usually seen as a threat to a country’s stability and progress. Some countries

are regarded as prepared to face them and ready to deal with the consequences, but still, a

disaster is always presented at the very least as an inconvenience. Contrary to this line of

thinking, this dissertation shows that catastrophes can present an opportunity for state-building.

Catastrophes, and the profound sense of insecurity they cause, force institutions to demonstrate

their adeptness, or change. Specifically, catastrophes challenge state power because they test its

basic role as protector from physical harm. Consequently, when disaster happens the state is put

to the test. States that arise triumphant from this challenge may use the opportunity to increase its

strength and develop new capacities.

However, I will start by acknowledging that the state has not always been regarded as

responsible for catastrophe and its consequences. Before modernity, responsibility for

catastrophe was in God´s hands. But as culture evolves, this responsibility has been transferred

from God to society, and specifically to the state. Today, we understand that disasters are a

consequence of our own decisions, and therefore we are responsible for its consequences. In this

context, demands to the state in terms of risk management and recovery have increased steadily

during the twentieth century. And as a result, the state has been forced to find new ways to

respond to these new challenges.

With this in mind, this project explores the relationship between catastrophes and the

development of the Chilean state. I understand catastrophe as a type of event, usually

unexpected and sudden, that prompts widespread destruction in a significant part of the territory

of a state; sharply affecting most, if not all, everyday social, economic and political functions. I

understand state-building as the process of increasing the administrative, fiscal and coercive

capacity of states to interact constructively with their societies and to pursue public goals more

effectively. My argument is that catastrophes and the process of dealing with their consequences

can unleash mechanisms of state-building similar to what has been argued for the case of

Western Europe and the effects of war (Tilly 1985, 1990).

To prove this, I use historical methods to look closely at Chile’s history of repeated

catastrophes prompted by earthquakes using theories of wars as an analogy. This allows me to

build a theory based on cross-case comparison, finding structurally equivalent pairs, instead of

classical historical comparison that search for similarities and differences across similar cases

(Vaughan 2014). Catastrophes are similar to wars in that they constitute a threat to the

population; and also, because they both leave destruction and victims in their wake. Since the

basic role of the state is to control internal and external threats protecting their citizens from

harm both wars and catastrophes demand state´s intervention.

Paraphrasing Tilly, I show that “states make catastrophe and catastrophe makes states.” First,

the sociology of risk allows us to understand that catastrophes are not an external event but one

created by society, and specifically, by decisions taken by states. And then, I show that both risk

management and the process of dealing with disaster´s consequences can led to state building. In

my example, it is clear that earthquakes have caused the Chilean state to organize, to improve the

capacity of its administration, to strengthen its control and establish new relationships with

Chilean society. Overall, I argue that in the Chilean case catastrophe has led to an increase in

state capacities; and these institutional developments work for the benefit of the Chilean state not

only in case of emergencies but in everyday life.

This happens because catastrophes are windows of opportunity to effect change. They

present themselves as momentous occurrences; events where decisions matter more than in

normal times. Destruction means that some things have to start from scratch and, in this context,

efforts to go “back to normal” rarely mean exactly that. Instead, power-holders have the

possibility to set institutions in new directions and define the path that the state is going to take in

the next period. In this line, it is another conclusion of this dissertation that ideas do matter. They

matter because they define problems, and as a consequence they determine the solutions that are

open to decision makers. Consequently, the notions and ideologies of power-holders are of great

importance to determine what happens after disaster, even if they cannot always do as they

please. Also, the ideologies of money-lenders matter a great deal. As Leander (2003) has shown,

international organizations have affected the way wars are being held in the developing world.

Similarly, my research shows that they can have an important role in setting the path

reconstruction is going to take.

Taking all this into account, I argue that the effect of catastrophe on state building can work

through at least two mechanisms: imposing certain needs and being invoked to achieve political

goals. For one side, the catastrophe has its own agenda. Because of the tragedy, a strong state is

needed; or as a minimum, a state that is able to manage the emergency and oversee

reconstruction. Also, the earthquake creates new needs in the areas of infrastructure, health,

transportation, among others. And this is, most of the times, a task for the state. On the other

side, the second mechanism is political; catastrophes are used by the government as an excuse to

push all kind of agendas ahead. And it is when these two mechanisms work together in the same

direction that the effect of the earthquake in state capacities will be significantly greater.

Nevertheless, we know that it takes a minimally strong state to profit from wars; weak states

might just disappear into chaos. Similarly, if the state cannot survive catastrophe it will not be

able to strengthen afterwards. For example, this is the case of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake in

Port-au-Prince. It can be argued, then, that more than a stimulant wars and catastrophes are a test

for the state. They challenge state power and at the same time generate a strong necessity for

state intervention. Weak states might just disappear into chaos, but minimally strong states can

profit from that situation, using it to increase its capacities in order to both prevent and manage

disasters.

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Table of Contents

List of Charts, Graphics and Illustrations……………………………………………….ii

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….iii

Dedication……………………………………………………………………………...iv

Introduction | Catastrophe and the State: Lessons from Chile´s Seismic History……..1

Chapter 1 | Theorizing Catastrophe and the State…………………………………..21

Chapter 2 | Cultural Shifts…………………………………………………………..51

Chapter 3 | Political Aftershocks……………………………………………………82

Chapter 4 | Institutional Legacies………………………………………………….150

Chapter 5 | Epilogue: the 2010 Maule Earthquake………………………………...202

Conclusions | Catastrophe and the State……………………………………………...223

References…………………………………………………………………………….231

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List of Charts, Graphics and Illustrations

Chart 1: Major Disasters and Catastrophes in Chilean History 17

Chart 2: Structure of fiscal income 1905-1912 192



Chart 5: Fiscal Roads 1903-1912 200



Graph 1: Number of Police 1985-1941 157

Graph 2: Number of Police 1956-1962 158

Graph 3: Fiscal Roads 1903-1912 200



Illustration 1: Distribution of earthquakes in space 15

Illustration 2: Distribution of earthquakes in time 16

Illustration 3: Theoretical Model 46

Illustration 4: Different plans for Valparaíso 102

Illustration 5: Different plans for Chillán 124

Illustration 6: Different plans for Valdivia 142

Illustration 7: Resilience en Chilean Imaginary 221

Illustration 8: Mechanisms linking Catastrophe and State Building 228

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Acknowledgements

This dissertation benefited from the help of many academics, colleagues, family and friends. I

thank specially to my adviser, Karen Barkey, without her nothing of this would have been

possible. During this time she has been my professor, my cheerleader and, I hope, my friend. I

also own thanks to the members of my committee; Diane Vaughan and Josh Whitford who were

always there for me. I am similarly grateful to my classmates for their comments at the Graduate

Students workshop. To my friends in New York, without you I would have gone crazy in a

month. To my friends in Chile, without you I would have finish much sooner (but less happy).

And finally I need to thank my family, who have not only supported me one hundred percent but

have also put up with me in my darkest dissertation moments. Gracias totales!

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To Vlad

1

INTRODUCTION | Catastrophe and the State: Lessons from Chile´s Seismic History

“Earthquakes alone are sufficient to destroy the prosperity of any country. If beneath

England the now inert subterranean forces should exert those powers, which most

assuredly in former geological ages they have exerted, how completely would the entire

condition of the country be changed! (...) England would at once be bankrupt; all papers,

records, and accounts would from that moment be lost. Government being unable to

collect the taxes, and failing to maintain its authority, the hand of violence and rapine

would remain uncontrolled. In every large town famine would go forth, pestilence and

death following in its train.”

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, 1909: 323.

These were the thoughts of Charles Darwin after witnessing the effects of a catastrophic

earthquake in Concepción, Chile, in 1835. He stayed in the city for only three days and was not

able to see that his prediction was deeply mistaken. Government did not collapse in 1835, nor in

1906, 1939, 1960 or 2010, the worst four years in Chile’s earthquake-prone history. On the

contrary, after the 1835 ruin of Concepción, order was quickly restored and the Intendencia

organized rescue from tents in the main square. Afterwards, the national government planned

much of reconstruction and recovery. In 1906, when Chile suffered an even worst catastrophe in

its main port of Valparaíso, the state responded with a full reconstruction plan, led by a

Reconstruction Committee, which designed a new city. By 1939, when Chile suffered its most

deadly earthquake ever, the government had an even more impressive response. Two new

agencies were created; first, a state agency in charge of rebuilding infrastructure, and second, one

in charge of economic recovery and development. The first agency later became the Ministry of

Housing, while the second one –CORFO- is until today a very important governmental

organization whose aim is to promote economic growth in the country. By 1960, when yet

2

another catastrophic earthquake destroyed southern Chile, the government once again developed

a national plan for reconstruction, including a National Plan for Emergencies that could help

with further disasters. Consequently, when the 2010 catastrophe came, destruction was

significantly low for such a large shock. Overall, it is clear that Darwin was not correct;

earthquakes alone are not sufficient to destroy the prosperity of any country. It certainly happens,

as we have seen recently in the case of Haiti, but it is definitely not a rule.

In the case of Chile, it can even be said that the state came out stronger from the ordeal,

which is precisely the argument of this dissertation. It is clear that catastrophes such as

earthquakes have usually been seen exactly as Darwin saw them: a menace to state power and a

threat to a country’s stability and progress. Some countries are regarded as prepared to face them

and ready to deal with the consequences, but a disaster is always presented at the very least as an

inconvenience.1 In this dissertation, I will not argue that catastrophes do not constitute a problem

for governments and populations who suffer them, but will show how they present, at the same

time, opportunities for the state to become stronger.

This dissertation, then, is about disasters. Nonetheless, it does not address the issues raised by

mainstream Sociology of Disasters. It does not ask about what transpires at the moment of

catastrophe, nor does it concern itself with the social roots of disasters or how they come to

happen. Instead, I deal with more general questions on the role of catastrophes in history and

social change. Specifically, I inquire about the effect that dealing with catastrophic disasters has

in states’ development and its ability to do what they do: monopolize violence, extract revenue

1 According to Albala-Bertrand´s study of disasters in developing countries “UNDRO-s publications invariably

consider natural disasters as formidable obstacles to economic and social development.” (Albala-Bertrand 1993)

3

from a population, deliver social welfare, etc. But mostly, this research is about understanding

catastrophic events and how they unfold in the political realm.

With this in mind, I understand catastrophes as a type of event, usually unexpected and

sudden, that prompts widespread destruction in a significant part of the territory of a state;

sharply affecting most, if not all, everyday social, economic and political functions.2 Although I

use the term disaster and catastrophe in this dissertation, there are reasons to differentiate them

and prefer the term catastrophe when analyzing their effect in state capacity. I define catastrophe

as a sub type of disaster where the characteristics of sudden, destructive and widespread are

particularly strong and well defined. In contrast, disasters are not only qualitatively less harmful,

but can be more diffuse and sometimes leave no permanent physical destruction, like in the case

of a heat wave. For E. Quarantelli and D.W. Perry, two of the founders of the Sociology of

Disaster, the distinction is fruitful not only in theoretical terms, but because catastrophes require

different kind of planning and management than disasters (Quarantelli 2006; Perry 2006). In

catastrophe, most or even all of the everyday functions of society are sharply and simultaneously

interrupted, most if not all people are victims of the event, and infrastructure is certainly

impacted. When disasters have catastrophic proportions communities are unable to search for

help within each other, and handling it is more than ever a task for the state (Quarantelli 2006;

Perry 2006). In fact, in catastrophe, the state not only has a bigger problem to deal with, but even

its existence can be heavily threatened.3

2 This definition has been adapted from different definitions of disaster in the Social Sciences. However, for

reasons that will be explained shortly, in this dissertation I prefer the use of the term catastrophe whenever possible. 3 Even etymologically, catastrophes mean a qualitative jump over disasters. While disaster means having “a bad

star”, bad luck, catastrophe is a more concrete term; meaning literally “to take down”, to destroy. Also, catastrophes imply materiality, and also a certain abruptness, “a sudden damage” to a community. From Greek katastrophē 'overturning, sudden turn', from kata- 'down' + strophē 'turning' (from strephein 'to turn'). Mid.

4

I understand state-building as the process of increasing the administrative, fiscal and coercive

capacity of states to interact constructively with their societies and to pursue public goals more

effectively.4 Hence, I see state capacities as the result of the process of state building. State

capacity is a core concept in Political Sociology and Political Science, and as such, has suffered

from conceptual fuzziness. Broadly speaking, it refers to the ability of a state to administer its

territory effectible (Skocpol 1985; Sikkink 1991). In other words, state capacity is a

measurement of state strength (Soifer 2008); a state that does not have state capacity is a weak

state, one that manages to administer the territory effectible is a strong state (Migdal 1988).

Unfortunately, state capacity (or strength) has been conceptualized very differently in different

studies (Hanson and Sigman (2001) found no less than 33 different ways to measure the concept

in Political Science). However, most agree that is better to speak of state capacities, in plural,

since the state has to achieve goals in different areas. And also, most social scientists agree with

Weber that the three areas core functions of the state are: coercion, revenue and administration

(Skocpol 1985; Soifer 2012). By coercive capacity, I mean the state´s ability to protect the

population from external threats, to preserve its borders and maintain internal peace and tame

violence. In other words, it refers to the capacity of the state to ensure security to its citizens,

independently of the existence of challengers to its rule. Revenue refers to the ability of the state

to impose upon the population it claims to rule and has been one of the most broadly used

measurements of state strength in social sciences. Third, administration refers to the ability to

provide basic services to its citizens. And finally, we must take into account that state power and

state capacity may be unevenly distributed in the territory, as has been usually shown to be the

16th century (in the sense 'denouement'): from Latin catastrophe. “An event causing great and usually sudden damage or suffering” Oxford Dictionary. 4 Adapted from: Brautigam, Deborah. “Introduction: Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries”. In

Brautigam, Deborah; Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge; Moore, Mick. Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2008.

5

case for Latin America (O´Donnell 1993). This unevenness is related to the notion of state reach,

the “actual penetration throughout the country and its capacity to govern society” (Yashar 2005,

6) or as Herbst has put it, the ability “to project power over distance” (Herbst 2000: 173). These

are the four dimensions of state strength I will be looking at when analyzing the effects of

catastrophe in the Chilean state.

My argument is that catastrophes and the process of dealing with their consequences, can

unleash mechanisms of state-building analog to what has been argued for the case of Western

Europe and the effects of war (Tilly 1985, 1990). According to Charles Tilly’s highly influential

theory “states make war and war makes states” (Tilly 1985, 1990); centralization of power is

essential to have a strong state, and only strong states win wars. Also, institutions that are crucial

to the modern state –such as taxes- were created for war-making. The dynamic is one in which

war-making, extraction and bureaucracies interacted to shape state-building. In this dissertation, I

use the analogy to show how other type of battles and threats can have a similar effect on the

state. Catastrophes prompt new efforts to increase state revenue, along with the development of

new bureaucracies and administrative bodies to administrate such revenue and implement the

policies required to win the war (in this case “against nature”) and to make reconstruction, and

ultimately recovery, possible. The analogy would allow us to understand better the mechanisms

by which both phenomena occur and have an outcome in common: state building.

To do so, I will use a Historical Sociology approach and look closely at Chile’s history of

repeated catastrophes prompted by earthquakes. At least ninety seven “major quakes” (more than

7 Ms in magnitude) can be counted in the country’s territory since independence from Spain

6

(1810); eighteen of them considered “great earthquakes” (more than 8 Ms).5 But despite this

prominence of earthquakes, Chilean history has never been told taking earthquakes as a starting

point. Studies on earthquakes are for the most part a description of the moment of emergency,

people’s recollections and testimonies. Few studies have dealt with long-term consequences and

none from the perspective proposed here. Hence, while focusing on developing a theoretical

approach on the effects of catastrophe in the state, this dissertation is at the same time an

historical recollection of these events and their importance in Chilean history.

STUDYING CATASTROPHE AND THE STATE

There is not a concrete literature on catastrophe´s effect on the state in sociology. In truth, the

topic has barely been addressed at all. Researchers tent to focus on explaining disaster centering

on pre-disaster conditions and extend little of their questioning to post disaster politics. As

example, only one out of five Annual Reviews of Sociology on Disasters since 1977, has

included a section on the long-term consequences of disasters. G.A. Kreps (1984) tried to

highlight what has been done in the topic, but found very little. Still, he concluded that studies

suggest that disasters have the power to change existing trends and this should be studied further

(Kreps 1984). E. Quarantelli, founder of the field, pointed this out more recently in his Agenda

for Disaster Research in the 21st century, arguing that disasters must be understood as occasions

that offer an opportunity to the creation of “short term correctives or long term adaptations”

(Quarantelli 2005). Conclusively, what mainstream disaster studies have failed to appreciate

fully is that catastrophes are moments when institutions and social arrangements are put to the

5 Data from the Chilean Seismological Service www.sismologia.cl // There are different scales to measure

earthquakes. Data from the National Chilean Service of Seismology presented here use the Mw Magnitude scale, same as the United States Geological Survey (USGS). This scale has succeeded the 1930s-era Richter magnitude scale (ML) that only measured earthquakes up to 6.9 ML. For all values below 6.9 Richter scale ML and Ms Magitude scales have basically the same values for the same earthquakes, even if the formulas are different.

http://www.sismologia.cl/

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test, and consequently, they present themselves as an opportunity to design new institutional

arrangements.

Case studies made by historians have shown results in these lines, even if not explicitly

addressing the issue. The two most notable examples are L. Perez´s history of hurricanes in Cuba

(Perez 2001) and G. Clancey´s account of earthquake history in Japan (Clancey 2006). In Winds

of Change, Perez argues that hurricanes should be highlighted as a key factor in the development

of Cuba. He shows that the storms played a decisive role in shaping the economy, the culture,

and the political economy of the island. Among the most relevant changes that he names are land

tenure reforms, labor organization, and the modification of systems of production. Similarly,

Clancey has approached the case of Japan, focusing on how its seismic history has defined the

country´s relationship with the West. In Earthquake Nation, he argues that earthquakes have

been both Japan´s biggest challenge for nation building and a source for it. This is exemplified

by the conflict between “Western” and “Japanese” architecture. There are other cases to learn

from, but they do not deal with repetitive disasters in the same country but are one case study.

One of the most known cases is the aftermath of the Lisbon 1755 earthquake, where the state’s

concern with the economic and political consequences of the earthquake became central to the

development of modern mentality in Europe. The state assumed for the first time a collective

responsibility for the consequences of the earthquake (Dynes 2000). More recently, M.A. Healey

shows in The Ruins of the New Argentina how it took an earthquake to launch future President

Juan Domingo Perón to the national political scene. He argues that Perón was an obscure colonel

in a recently installed military regime when he organized the relief campaign and rapidly

commissioned plans to rebuild the city of San Juan. Perón would gain exposure thanks to his role

in earthquake relief and reconstruction, and soon found a movement, reach the presidency, and

8

transformed the politics and social structure of the country. By exploring the process of

rebuilding and the complex social processes underneath, Healey shows how this played a crucial

role in forging, testing, and ultimately limiting the Peronist project that transformed Argentina

(Healey 2011). Also, the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City has gained lots of attention as an

economic and political turning point due to its subsequent social unrest, challenging decades of

PRI´s de facto monopoly of the political arena (Olson and Gawronski 2003; Walker 2009). And

lately, the sociology of hurricane Katrina has brought new light to Disaster Studies, with several

projects studying political and policy change after the event, even if in this case changes are at

city or regional level (Brunsma, Overfelt and Picou 2007; Squires and Hartman 2006).

Like the cases exposed above, there are several other studies that lead us to believe that the

state is an important player in understanding of the effect of catastrophe in the long term. They

point out that after disasters, especially those with catastrophic proportions, we should expect

repercussions in the political arena because disasters challenge state power, somehow putting it

to the test on its ability to monopolize violence. Protection from physical harm is the state’s basic

role, especially from external sources. Is nature supposed to be one of those forces? Can citizens

hold the state accountable for disaster’s harm? Cases show that the answer of citizens has been

yes. David A. Moss has researched this topic and shown that in the last century the state has

increasingly been held accountable for disasters’ destruction. In consequence, he calls the state

“the ultimate risk manager” (Moss 2002). When everything fails, he says, we turn to the state;

not only the insurer of uninsurable risks but also the insurer of insurances. Also, the declining

role of religious explanations for disasters has reverberated in the state, not only as an effective

source of relief to victims but also as a protector from harm. If the gods are not deciding on

disaster, and on who dies and who lives, then it is the lack of hazard’s regulation or the state’s

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inability to enforce this regulation what is commonly pointed out as the root of disasters,

especially natural disasters. Consequently, when things go wrong the state is put to the test. And

after the crisis is over, recovery and reconstruction ensue, which is indisputably a goal for the

state. Of course, civil society, private corporations and other actors are known to play a crucial

role in reconstruction, but for the most part, it is the state that must organize and set the

conversation on how this process is going to be. Public policy reports mostly understand

recovery as a process to restart production and put it back to pre-disaster levels. However,

reconstruction is not just a physical endeavor, even if it is shaped by the need to reconstruct.

Recovery is a process driven also by the desire to bring back to life the social and cultural world

that the disaster endangered, as much as it can be driven by the interest in doing something

totally or somehow different. Catastrophes, and the profound sense of insecurity they cause,

force institutions and social agreements to demonstrate their legitimacy and adeptness, or

change. Even if new buildings and structures can be rapidly rebuilt, new meanings and

expectations can be restructured in the institutions those buildings hold.

Summarizing, we can say that studying catastrophes in the long term means understanding

that catastrophes usually mean change. This is not a controversial idea at all. But for the most

part, it is a line of research that has been taken for granted in Sociology.

METHODS

To explore these ideas further, I look at disasters through the lens of Historical Sociology.

Even though for those working in the fields themselves history and sociology have clear limits, it

is also true that most will readily agree that the areas overlap (Griffin 1995; Abrams 1980;

Skocpol 1987; Abbot 1991). The study of disasters is a good example of this; they are both

historically relevant and sociologically significant. But it is also true that sociologists and

10

historians will work with them in dissimilar ways; the difference, it has been argued, is not in the

methods employed but in the kind of questions asked (Cahnman and Boskoff 1964). History

deals with what is idiographic and particularizing, while sociology likes nomothetic and

generalizing principles. Sociologists’ questions, then, are thought to be theoretically relevant,

while historians’ questions should be relevant to particular cases. But I do not think this is

entirely true anymore (if ever). Historians have long ago reached to theory, in sociology and in

other social sciences, to understand their cases. And sociologists have discovered the power of

case studies to fully understand the mechanisms through which structure works. Nonetheless, an

emphasis in detail is still the mark of the historian, whereas generalizing principles continues to

be the obsession for us, sociologists. In this context, Historical Sociology, as a bridge between

the disciplines, “intends to render a conceptualized account of societal processes as they actually

occur, meaning that the occurrences are considered as ends in themselves, though illuminated by

theory” (Cahnman 1976). For the sociologist, looking into the past is an effort to understand the

present, by way of explaining large-scale social transformations (Barkey 2009).

A point of encounter between the disciplines is the study of events. Events are contingent and

unique happenings; consequently, most social sciences have looked down on them as

unscientific. Disaster Studies are a very good example of this, actively fighting the notion of

disasters as events in order to make them “more sociological.” But historical sociologists have

shown that by studying events we get to know structure better. And I will argue that the notion of

event, as defined by Historical Sociology, is a crucial analytical tool to understand catastrophes’

effects on the state. As William Sewell describes for the French Revolution, events are not

defined by one moment alone; there is a sequence of occurrences that shape an event such as the

Storming of the Bastille, followed by a cascading series of further ruptures that might result in

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structural transformations (Sewell 1996). Likewise, catastrophes are not just a sudden occurrence

unrelated to the community or society in which it happens, they eventuate from the past. But

more importantly for this dissertation, catastrophes signify for the future, they mark a before and

after in history and social life. And this whole sequence of occurrences constitutes the disaster-

as-an-event worth of social science inquiry. As a result, I do not want to treat history as a source

of additional cases. Instead, I see history as an opportunity to study the mechanisms as they

work, and to understand under what circumstances and contexts they are more fruitful. With this,

I seek to gain greater analytical leverage, not by the number of cases, but by choosing cases that

will allow me to see the effect of catastrophe in the state.

Also, since the main cases under study occur all in the same country, it is crucial to

understand the role played by temporality. It is not only about what happens, but also about when

it happens. Social processes such as state-building unfold over time, and the difference in

sequences or simultaneity of two processes can produce critical consequences (Pierson 2004).

Catastrophes have hit Chile repeatedly, during different moments in its history, with different

cultural paradigms reigning and diverse governments and ideologies governing. This allows for

fruitful comparisons between cases, but at its core, it shows the development of a process, in

which past events affect decisions that might be taken in the next event. Comparisons between

cases cannot leave that aside. I believe that by analyzing the different cases in sequence I will be

able to see the process, its continuities and changes. However, I will not attempt to develop an

eventful analysis as a quantitative technique, but will rather use eventful sociology as an

analytical guideline to understand social transformations prompted by catastrophes.

Moreover, the analogy with wars will allow us to build a theory based on cross-case

comparison. Thinking analytically using analogy means to find structurally equivalent pairs,

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instead of classical historical comparisons that search for similarities and differences across

similar cases (Vaughan 2014). Despite variation in both phenomena –wars and catastrophes-

each one presents a similar pattern, which combined to the differences between cases it help us

to drive the theory forward. As Vaughn has richly explained, to do so we shall “being research

with a starting theory, concept, or definition in mind that shapes our selection of a case. So from

the beginning, we are making a comparison between our cases and what we expect to find, based

on a theory, concept, or characteristics of other cases” (Vaughan 2014: 65). In this case, the

analogy will be made with bellicist theories of war, for which my case is and hypothesis. In other

words, it is wars what will serve as a deep comparison. Therefore, Tilly´s theory will

accompany every part of this dissertation. For this, I have reduced the theory to a set of key

concepts (explained in Chapter 1) and tested it for my case. The result is organized in five

chapters that will be described at the end of this introduction.

Data Used in this Dissertation

The most important sources used for this dissertation are:

Newspapers. Both National and regional, newspapers have been at the center of this

dissertation. They allowed me not only to understand the happenings of the first days

after the quake, but to comprehend the worries and demands of the population to the

authorities after the emergency had passed. Also, they were crucial to trace the different

plans and ideas for reconstruction and their groups of interest. Most of the newspapers

were found in Chile´s National Library (Biblioteca Nacional) but Columbia Libraries was

also of great help locating them in the United States.

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Parliamentary Discussions of the bills designed to deal with reconstruction allowed me to

understand the views of the different parties, their worries and proposed solutions.

Especially, it allowed me to understand the different options for reconstruction that were

on the table for a while but never happened. These parliamentary discussions are found in

the archives of the Chilean Library of Congress (Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de

Chile).

Presidential Speeches. Every 21st of May the president of Chile addresses congress to

report on the events of the past year. Like the U.S “State of the Union,” the address

reports on the condition of the country and allows the President to outline his present and

future legislative agenda and national priorities. This speech is accompanied by a written

report on the development of every state agency, ministry and office during the previous

year. These reports were very helpful for understanding the work that the executive had

done on reconstruction, the vision of the president for the future of the country and the

role the earthquake had played in changing or maintaining those plans. Most of this

speeches and reports are available at the website Memoria Chilena.

Personal correspondence, journals and letters. This type of source is more necessary for

19th

century catastrophes. Newspapers were not out on a daily basis at the beginning of

the century. Parliament did hold a remarkably organized record, but very brief and with

the most important information. Also, for my analysis of this century I center on the ideas

that were more prominent during the time, and how this changed. For this I need to check

on private and public letters and journals, all available at the Chilean National Library.

14

Statistics: Chile has a good tradition of record-keeping. Different sources were used, and

are all specified in due moment and in the Reference section.

Secondary Sources: As I mentioned before earthquakes are not a prominent topic in

Chilean historiography. However, secondary sources were used to understand the

political context of earthquakes and later development of the institutions created after

earthquakes.

Cases and a note on Chile´s Seismic History

According to the data provided by Chile´s National Seismological Center (Centro

Sismológico Nacional, CSN), at least a ninety seven destructive earthquakes (Magnitude (Ms)

>7) have been counted in the country’s territory since independence (1810); eighteen of them

considered “great earthquakes” (Ms>8) (CSN 2015).6 Also, Chile is one of the few countries that

tremble all over; no region of the country is free of the possibility of a major earthquake. Not

surprisingly, Chile is regarded as the most highly seismic country of the planet, with the possible

exception of Japan (Lomnitz 1970; Lomnitz 2004).

Figure 1 shows distribution of major earthquakes and catastrophes in Chilean territory.7 The

first maps show the epicenter of all quakes of magnitude 7 or more, the second map shows the

6 This data changes constantly. It is difficult to keep track since earthquake magnitude > 7Ms happen very often.

Data from Chile´s National Seismological Center presented here use the Ms Magnitude scale. This scale has succeeded the 1930s-era Richter magnitude scale (ML). For all values below 6.9 Richter scale (ML) and Ms Magnitude scales are the same. (The original Richter scale did not measure earthquakes more than 7 ML.). The magnitude scale compares amplitudes of waves on a seismogram, not the strength (energy) of the quakes. However, we can get a sense of the strength of the quake looking at the magnitude (or calculate it): a change of 0.1 in magnitude means a change in about 1.4 times the energy release. Therefore, and earthquake of magnitude 8 is ten times bigger than a 7 Ms quake, but 31.622 times stronger. Since it is really the energy or strength that knocks down buildings, this is really the more important comparison. (Based on the information provided by US Geological Survey http:// http://earthquake.usgs.gov/) 7 The country’s territory has changed during the 200 years since Independence but the Chilean Seismological

Service counts all earthquakes that have ever happened in what is Chile today. This is, it includes earthquakes in

15

epicenter of the most destructive ones. To differentiate major catastrophes from smaller disasters

is not always easy, especially since what might constitute a minor earthquake in Chile would be

a disaster in another country. Scientific measures based on magnitude are deceptive since for an

earthquake to be a major catastrophe there has to be vulnerable population to suffer them, an

earthquake with epicenter in the middle of the dessert will hardly constitute a major catastrophe.

Therefore, the location of the epicenter and the vulnerability of the population are more crucial

than magnitude when trying to account for historical events.

Illustration 1: Distribution of Earthquakes in Space

territories that were Peruvian or Bolivian at the time. Also, data on this point can change any moment. There had had been 3 quakes of more than 7 Richter after 2010 when I wrote my previous draft, now there have been 4.

Source: Compiled by author based on data from the Chilean Seismological Center

16

There are scales that measure the intensity of the earthquake in terms of human and material

losses. The most famous of these scales is the Mercalli scale, originated in 1884. But in the case

of Chile there is not enough historical research to present geologists with the information they

need to attribute a degree to old earthquakes and these calculations have not been done (Lomnitz

2004).8 Also, these scales are problematic because one hundred deaths in nineteenth century

Chile meant something different in the twentieth century. In fact, an earthquake causing at least

900 deaths in 1922 was regarded as a minor disaster at the time, while the 1835 earthquake was

nicknamed “the Ruin of Concepción” when only 120 bodies were counted in the city. The fact

that the country was smaller and population was spread in the countryside certainly accounts for

this difference.

Illustration 2: Distribution of earthquakes in time (1810-2016)

Illustration 2 shows the distribution of major earthquakes in Chilean history since

independence. The first that comes to light is that the amount of catastrophic earthquakes is

higher in the 20th

century than in the 19th

. Is the earth becoming more agitated? That is not what

seismologists think. What happens is that as Chile becomes more populated and urbanized the

likelihood of an earthquake becoming a major catastrophe increases. Also, there is a certain

8 An even now the USGS has guided its analysis by the worst-observed damage in a locality, while Chilean

engineers make an average of observed damage to assign intensity to the locality. The difference is usually of one degree of Mercalli intensity (Lomnitz 2004). It is, in the end, a scale based on judgment.

Source: Compiled by author based on data from the Chilean Seismological Center

17

degree of randomness; the depth of the hypocenter, the type of land in that area, the time of day

of the quake and, specially, if it is followed by a tsunami or not. All these things matter when

accounting for the intensity of an earthquake instead of its magnitude.

Taking all this into account, geologists’ and historians’ opinions coincide that three

earthquakes constitute the major catastrophes in Chilean history: Valparaíso 1906, Chillán 1939

and Valdivia 1960. Each of these years, a significant part of the Chilean territory was left in the

ground and for a moment the state was completely paralyzed by catastrophe. The earthquake in

Maule in 2010 will certainly be added to this list. No other earthquake in Chilean history is

comparable to this four in terms of the disruption that meant to social order, and consequently,

the challenge that signified for the state. Yet, some other disasters are relevant for this

dissertation and will be taken into account if they enrich the argument. In particular, it would not

be wise to dismiss earthquakes during the first one-hundred years of the republic; even though

they seem small with today´s eyes they certainly meant “the ruin” at the time: the 1822

earthquake in Valparaíso and the 1835 ruin of Concepcion.

Chart 1 Major Disasters and Catastrophes in Chilean History9

XIX Century Damage Government Relevant post disaster issues

1822

Valparaíso

(8.5 Ms).

The earthquake was accompanied

by fires and tsunamis, Valparaíso –

Chile´s most important harbor-

was completely destroyed.

Bernardo O’Higgins was

supreme director of the

country. He was in the middle

of a crisis. He resigned soon

after the event.

Interpretation of disaster as “the wrath

of God” starts to lose ground. The state

crumbled afterwards but managed to re

build churches and state offices. No

reconstruction plan.

1835

Concepción

(8.3 Ms).

The ruin of Concepción, the

second most important city at the

time. The area from Concepción to

Valdivia was completely destroyed

by earthquake and tsunami.

President José Joaquín Prieto.

He was the first president of the

period called “Conservative

Republic.”

The state commissioned a group of

natural scientist to study the reasons of

the quake. Tried to move some towns.

Could not move Concepción.

9 Ms based on www.sismologia.cl

18

XX Century Damage Government Relevant post disaster issues

1906.

Valparaíso

(8.2 Ms).

Accompanied by fires and a

tsunami, it completely destroyed

Chile´s most important port. All

central Chile was affected,

including Santiago. The most

destructive and deadly single event

in Chilean history at the time, with

at least three thousand casualties,

and probably around 7,000.

President Pedro Montt

Parliamentary Republic.

Cabinets were formed by

ministers of all parties. Montt

was a National, a center party

supported by businessmen. But

political cleavage was almost

nonexistent. It was more an

oligarchy than a republic.

Reconstruction of Valparaíso was

organized by a state-led Reconstruction

Board. State took control of politics in

the city. A moment for the state to assert

some autonomy.

Institutional developments: National

Seismic Institute and Bureau of

Worker´s statistics.

Tax: Increased in city taxes, that were

now collected by the state

1939.

Chillán (8.3

Ms)

The most deadly earthquake in

Chilean history ever, with at least

5,600 casualties directly from the

earthquake, and probably 15000

when counting those affected by

diseases. All central Chile was

greatly affected, including

Santiago.

Pres. Pedro Aguirre-Cerda.

Radical Party (left). Governed

with the popular front, a center

left coalition. He wanted the

Chilean state to intervene in the

economy and the earthquake

was perfect excuse.

Reconstruction of Chillán and

Concepción in the hands of new

corporation, CRA. Creation of CORFO.

CRA and CORFO complete changed

the path in economic development and

the role of the state in the economy.

This inaugurates Chile´s interventionist

state. It was founded by loans and taxes.

Tax increase was important.

1960.Valdivia

(9.5 Ms) &

Concepción

(8.2 Ms)

Two catastrophic earthquakes, two

days in a row. The first one alone

is counted as one of the most

relevant earthquakes in history, but

the second one is the strongest

ever recorded in the world (9.5

Ms). Even so, there were less

casualties that in 1939, around two

thousand deaths were recorded.

All southern Chile was heavily

affected.

Pres. Arturo Alessandri (Right)

He called himself a political

and a technocrat, but was

elected with the right vote. He

did not want to make the state

bigger, on the contrary, he

wanted to put a stop of the

popular front politics.

This earthquake was managed by giving

more power, money and personal to the

Economic Ministry, that was re named

Ministry of Economy and

Reconstruction. It was a way to hide

state growth. Also, we see the arrival of

foreign agencies, the World Bank and

the Export-Import American Bank and

later the Alliance for progress. There is

a tax reform to pay for reconstruction.

DISSERTATION´S ORGANIZATION

This dissertation analyses more than two hundred years of history. Also, this research deals

with a comprehensive definition of state-building, putting together theories of war and the state

Source: Compiled by author based on data from the Chilean Seismological Center and research done in this dissertation.

19

in a new light, which includes several analytical dimensions. To arrange all this data and theory I

organize chapters in a way that each chapter uses two or more cases to explain one particular

analytical dimension. Overall, each chapter always compares more than one case to explore a

theoretical point, sometimes reaching to cases in other countries to enrich the argument.

In Chapter 1, Theorizing Catastrophe and the State I present the research that informs my

own work. It is design to present what we know about the relationship between catastrophe and

the state. Also, I will clearly show how I propose to address the issue taking bellicist theories of

state building as a cross-case analogy.

In Chapter 2, Cultural Shifts, I describe paradigm shifts in beliefs about earthquakes that are

crucial for forthcoming demands on the state. As theories of war have explained, it is not only

about war but also about what kind of wars (Centeno 2002) and when they are located in a

developmental process (Eartman 1997; Leander 2003). Similarly, catastrophes have had different

interpretations in different epochs, and this has meant a different approach from the part of the

state. Today, we understand that it is because of bad planning and bad decision making that

catastrophes happen, but before modernity disasters where considered God´s punishment and

therefore there was nothing to be done to prevent them. This chapter is about how this change

happened and what its consequences for the state are.

In Chapter 3, Political Aftershocks I analyze the three major earthquakes of twentieth century

Chile from the perspective of its political consequences. For this I reach to the notion of critical

juncture. What are the changes that earthquakes have brought to the Chilean political system? As

we know from theories of war, these events have the power to change political equilibriums both

internally and externally (Barkey 2011). This happens because they are all encompassing events,

20

affecting all aspects of social life. Similarly, I will show in this chapter that catastrophes can

stress political systems in a way that allow changes not only to be possible, but necessary. Also, I

will analyze changes at the city level, and show that for communities that suffer disaster they

always constitute a critical juncture.

In Chapter 4, Institutional Legacies I go deep in the case for state capacities being the result

of catastrophe. I explore the legacies of the three major earthquakes in Chilean history and argue

that this shows how the Chilean state has become stronger after every one of these catastrophes.

These institutional legacies are also similar to that described by the bellicists for the case of war

and state capacities; concretely, these outcomes are new state institutions, new bureaucracies and

new taxes.

In Chapter 5, called Epilogue, I analyze the 2010 Maule earthquake from the light of this

dissertation. This analysis is not as deep as the other four earthquakes but it allow us both to

close the story of Chile´s seismic history and to use what has been found in this research to

analyze a new case. Also, I reach to the case of Haiti to better explain what the conclusions of

my research are.

Finally, on the Conclusions, I summarize the findings of this dissertation, explicating what is

the contribution to sociological knowledge and the limitations of the work that has been done.

21

Chapter 1 | THEORIZING CATASTROPHE AND THE STATE

“We know far too little about the process of recovery, but recent studies in developing

societies are proving useful leads. They suggest that disasters must be interpreted not

only in terms of immediate damage and disruption but also of the degree in which they

change already existing trends.”

G.A. Kreps. 1984. “Sociological Inquiry and Disaster Research”

Annual Review of Sociology 10:322.

The study of disasters is not the monopoly of any discipline, not even Disaster Studies.

Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists and historians, among others, have

subfields that focus on disaster. Disaster Studies could be thought of as a bridge between all of

these subfields, a place where all of this research is gathered. But in practice the groups of

researchers that devote their careers to this particular field tend to be strongly linked to the public

policy sphere. Since the field came into existence, most studies that are labeled Disaster Studies

have been funded by state agencies, and today research is highly dependent on development

agencies such as the World Bank and the International Development Bank. As a consequence,

theoretical work on disasters –in any discipline- tends to be labeled as something else: Disaster

Anthropology, Macroeconomics of Disaster, or Environmental History, among others.10

Nonetheless, the Sociology of Disasters has particularly strong links with Disaster Studies, since

10

A few years ago, I did a small study using a ProQuest dataset from 2007 to 2012. Looking at the categorization of research in Sociological Abstracts, I concluded that the labeling of research in the social sciences is very complicated, and that the research considered Disaster Studies does not constitute all of the research on disasters in the field. In fact, only 50.4 percent of the articles with the words disaster, catastrophe, earthquake or hurricane in the title are labeled as Disaster Studies. Instead, those articles are labeled: sociology of health, urban sociology, social psychology, cultural sociology, gender studies, history and theory, and social capital, among many others. Also, when research has more than one label, Disaster Studies is almost never (less than 1 percent of the time) labeled in the company of theoretical concepts such as: social change, state role, markets, race, or political sociology. Instead, the most common labels are groups (15 percent), risk, vulnerability, disaster relief, Katrina and disaster preparedness (8 percent).

22

the founders of the first Disaster Research Center were both sociologists: Enrico L. Quarantelli

and Rusell R. Dynes, from Ohio State University. Regrettably, this has meant that, for the most

part, research in the Sociology of Disaster has echoed the applied focus of mainstream Disaster

Studies (Quarantelli and Dynes 1977; Kreps 1984; Comfort 2005; Quarantelli 2005; Tierney

2007). The field has also been fairly isolated from other areas of sociology, with most of its

research lacking the assumptions, theories or even concepts of sociological literature (Quarantelli

2005). As Quarantelli himself has argued recently, this approach has accomplished much, but it

cannot be said to be truly sociological (which is probably not its aim) (Quarantelli 2005; Watts

1983).

Unfortunately, this means that there is no concrete literature that links disasters and the state

in sociology, beyond a broad collection of public policy advice on hazard reduction and disaster

management. And yet, the possibilities for linking sociology and the study of disaster are, in my

opinion, limitless. Sociology of Health, Urban Sociology, and Economic and Political Sociology,

just to name a few, would have something to say about these events. Furthermore, I will argue

that disasters should be seen as an exceptional place to test broader sociological theories. Despite

frequent characterization of disasters as natural windows into the broader forces that shape

societies, there has been little exploration of this by sociology. With this I mean that we can not

only enrich the disaster field by including new theories, but that different areas of sociology

could also be further developed if they took disasters into their field. I echo here Rudel’s critique

of environmental sociologists, claiming that “studies of ‘business as usual’ conditions do not

capture the ways in which single events or aggregations of events transform societies” (Rudel,

2012: 751). Likewise, other fields of sociology could take this advice and pay renewed attention

23

to the challenge of integrating unruly, disordered sequences of historical events into the recurrent

social patterns that our training has taught us to emphasize most (Rudel 2012).

This project suggests that the best place for sociology to begin to account for the effects of

disasters in social change is by analyzing their impact on the state. To do so, I have had to put the

Sociology of Disasters in conversation with other areas of sociology and the social sciences. In

this chapter, I will present what I have found that is useful for the topic at hand and discuss how

we can study catastrophes and their relationship with state building in a fruitful way. I will start

by acknowledging what the Sociology of Disasters has contributed to the framework of this

dissertation. Then, I will develop a view of catastrophe as events using the tools developed by

Historical Sociology. Finally, I will propose a way to look at catastrophe’s consequences for the

state in the long term, taking as a starting point bellicist approaches to state building.

DISASTERS

The origin of the term disaster is Greek; literally meaning that an event was ‘ill-starred.’ It

suggests that when something bad happens it is a punishment of the gods.11

Some of this aura of

misfortune has been preserved in modern views of disaster, including pioneer research in

Disaster Studies. For the first sociologists in the field, disasters were defined by a rapid and

unexpected shock that caused widespread destruction (Fritz, 1961). The focus of their research

was to understand how people reacted in these unexpected moments of intense stress

(Quarantelli 1987). Disasters were understood as originating outside of social life, very much

like a sentence sent from Olympus. But just as sociology has devoted itself to revealing the

social roots of those gods, disasters have been unmasked as a socially constructed phenomenon.

Today, we understand that disasters are foreseeable manifestations of the larger forces that shape

11

From Greek δυσ- (dus-) "bad" + ἀστήρ (aster) "star."

24

society, reflecting the characteristics of the community in which they occur and dependent on

decisions made by humans (Kreps 1984; Tierney 2007). Even when the onset agent is natural

(like in an earthquake), the scope, depth and character of the disaster in itself will depend on the

vulnerability (physical and social) of the communities affected.

The Social Roots of Disaster

The framework and ideas established by the first researchers in Disasters Studies not only

shaped the field’s beginnings, but they continue to dominate a significant part of it today

(Tierney 2007). Most research is still practically minded and addresses disasters as external

shocks. However, for sociologists in the field this was identified as problematic early on. The

second annual review on the topic, done by G.A Kreps in 1984, argued for a reversion in the

argument; he claimed that disasters originate in society. This is, they are dependent on decisions

made by humans (Kreps 1984) (Turner 1978). Even if most research presented by Kreps did not

follow this notion, most sociologists shared it and argued in favor of emancipating the field from

physical notions of disasters in order to instead emphasize their social features (Quarantelli 1998;

Tierney 1999; Kreps 1998; Dombrowsky 1995). This meant a new approach to disaster research

from the perspective of the Sociology of Risk, as the 1993 annual review on the topic explicitly

acknowledges (Clarke and Short 1993). If before disasters were seen as problems where people

are the unintended victims of destructive events beyond ordinary human control, under the

framework of risk the problem is reshaped into one in which human actions and social, economic

and political conditions are responsible for creating disasters (Comfort 2005). In the words of

disaster sociologist K.J. Tierney, “while other disciplines may merely assume that ´risk happens´

sociologists know better than that. Earthquakes are acts of nature, but earthquakes disasters –the

25

death, injuries, economic losses, and social disruption that result when the earth trembles- are

social in origin” (Tierney 1999: 26).

Consequently, if we assume that the causes of disasters are social in origin, we must focus on

studying these causes to truly understand disasters sociologically. This means introducing the

idea of vulnerability to the study of disasters; although different groups may share a similar

exposure to a natural disaster, the consequences for each group may differ because they have

diverging capacities to handle the impact. This notion was introduced by Hewitt in his influential

book Interpretations of Calamity (Hewitt 1983). Later, the idea of social vulnerability was

developed further by Wisner et al. (1994) who took a truly social perspective on it, arguing that

disasters are a kind of negative externality of larger political and economic trends. The topic was

further developed by Mileti in his book Disasters by Design (1999), where he argued that

unsustainable practices in development have predictable disastrous consequences. Consequently,

disasters happen as direct consequences of bad planning and decision making. They can no

longer be seen as a punishment of the gods, instead they constitute a crime (Mileti 1999).

Also, much of the research done in disasters has come from the Sociology of Organizations.

Early on, Turner (1976) observed the manner in which organizational structures are patterned to

cope with unknown events, such as disasters. He concludes that disasters are a collapse of

precautions that had hitherto been accepted as adequate, which means that disasters are in the

making long before they happen. In his book, Man-Made disasters (1978) he expands in this

issue and shows that organizational failure does not arise random or accidental, but rather the

expected consequences of certain decisions. Similarly, in Normal Accidents Perrow (1984)

analyzed the social side of technological risk. He refers to a certain kind of accidents as normal,

since the system's characteristics make it inherently vulnerable to such accidents. A normal

26

accident occurs in a system with so many parts (complex) that it is likely that something is

wrong with at least one of those parts at any given time. A well-designed complex system will

include redundancy. However, unexpected interactions may lead to failure. Diane Vaughan

(1997) has discussed this in a more applied manner, studying the Challenger launch decision and

presenting disasters as one facet of the dark side of organizations. She shows how because

NASA’s scientists and engineers were so good at rapidly integrating and acting on huge amounts

of information, they failed to catch the high pitch of the serious signals when something was

wrong. Many of the aspects of the technological disaster’s framework have been useful for study

of disaster’s in general, especially the focused on organizational decisions. We can appreciate the

relevance if this in the studies on Katrina that have endeavored to show the institutional,

organizational and cognitive factors that produced the catastrophe (Brunsma, et all. 2007).

Another notable example of disaster studies following the risk paradigm is Klinenberg’s

(2002) study of Chicago’s heat wave. In his book Heat Wave, Klinenberg (2002) brings to our

attention an invisible disaster, but also explains how the disaster exposed the disparities,

vulnerabilities and effects of isolation in communities. Most likely, classical approaches to

disasters would have failed to appreciate the insights these researchers presented. Recently, and

particularly in light of Hurricane Katrina, these constructivist notions have taken hold in the

research done by sociologists in the field. There is an ample consensus that the hurricane in itself

was a natural phenomenon, but it was the neglect of the embankment, the destruction of the

surrounding wetlands and bad decisions about evacuation that caused the disaster per se. This is,

the catastrophe was not natural at all, rather it was the consequence of the state’s poor decisions

(Brunsma et.all 2007; Squires and Hartman 2006).

27

Overall, it is clear that the risk perspective has enriched the field of Disaster Studies

enormously by making it more sociological. In the case of disasters triggered by natural

phenomena, it has permitted researchers to untangle the analysis of the onset agent from disasters

themselves, placing the disaster as the dependent variable. In a more practical vein, it has

prompted the development of useful frameworks of vulnerability and hazards, frameworks that

enable us to better understand how disasters happen and increase our capacity for prevention.

Also, disasters that are not marked by a sudden onset and physical destruction (such as heat

waves) have only been identified as disasters by sociology after a more constructivist notion was

developed. Finally, constructivist notions have also helped sociology link the study of disasters

with core sociological questions such as gender, inequality and race (See for example: (Peacock

1997; Enearson and Morrow 1998; Bolin et all. 1998; Fothergill 2004).

For this dissertation, the notion that disasters are socially constructed and dependent on

society’s decisions is crucial. It shows us that catastrophes are not external phenomena but rather

the product of society’s decisions, and, more specifically, state and political decisions. In other

words, today we understand that nature makes the earth shakes, but society make catastrophes.

Yet, the risk approach has its own drawbacks for the objectives of this research. In focusing on

disasters as the consequence of certain social circumstances and decisions, the risk approach sets

aside the question of how circumstances might change because of disaster. For the Sociology of

Disasters, change following catastrophe has usually been taken for granted; it is not a

controversial idea at all, but it has not been systematically studied. Classical focus on the impact

period has been complemented by new research on the pre-impact period, but studies on the

aftermath of disaster do not populate the field. Moreover, most research on disasters still deals

with applied topics; the focus has only shifted from crisis management to disaster prevention. A

28

focus on the long term consequences of catastrophes has seldom been addressed by this field.

What mainstream disaster studies have failed to appreciate fully is that catastrophes are moments

when institutions and social arrangements are put to the test, and efforts to “go back to normal”

rarely mean exactly that. Instead, catastrophes present themselves as an opportunity to design

new institutional arrangements. E. Quarantelli pointed this out recently in his Social Science

Research Agenda for Disaster Research in the 21st century, arguing that disasters must be

understood as occasions that offer an opportunity (or perhaps actually demand) the creation and

adoption of short-term correctives or long term adaptations (Quarantelli 2005). In effect, I will

argue here that only when analyzed as events are disasters revealed as key moments for social

change, including changes in the state.

Catastrophes as Events

Outside of the Sociology of Disaster, there are other areas of sociology that might prove

more useful to understanding catastrophes’ effects on the state. To start, we need to position

catastrophes in a process in order to understand continuity and change. To achieve this, this

dissertation reaches back to historical notions of structure and events. For historical sociologists

it should be obvious that earthquakes or tsunamis constitute ‘big events;’ however, constructivist

notions in the Sociology of Disaster have openly rejected this assessment full force. Hewitt

(1983) criticizes the idea of disasters as events as a “convenient fiction” that operates primarily

to bolster institutions concerned with the control of nature and human societies. Dombrowsky

(1995) complains that the notion of event freezes a complex social context into a static actor or a

“thing” and does not adequately express its dynamic complexity. More recently, in the last

annual review of the field, Tierney (2007) criticized the “event-based approach” claiming that it

separates disasters from their social contexts. Disasters, the argument goes, are intrinsic to social

29

life, and the idea of them as unexpected and extraordinary is misleading. In Tierney´s words:

“disasters should be understood as normal, common occurrences that reflect the characteristics of

the societies in which they occur” (Tierney 2007: 518). Thus, the notion of event has been

rejected to highlight that disasters are socially constructed (events supposedly are not) as well as

that disasters are the consequence of pre-disaster social structure (again, events supposedly are

not).

Instead of “events,” new constructivist notions have encouraged the study of hazards, risks

and vulnerability. Accordingly, definitions of disasters per se have become more diffuse, both in

terms of time (e.g., famines) and space (e.g., global warming). I have even encountered the term

“permanent disaster” when confronting epidemics (Crimp 1992; Lezaun 2012). Thus, new

conceptions of disaster are not quite distinguishable from the notion of “social problem,” even if

they are accepted as “non-routine social problems” (Kreps and Drabek 1996). From a Sociology

of Risk perspective, social problems and disasters have many similar features; mainly they are

both something society wants to avoid. But if we are looking to study disasters themselves,

together with their subsequent consequences, these diffuse notions are not helpful at all. For the

Sociology of Risk disasters have become epiphenomena, secondary or byproduct to other more

important phenomena, this being hazards (Quarantelli 2005). The problem is not what words to

use but rather that disasters are different from hazards. Both phenomena deserve research, and

unless we manage to completely avoid disasters we are not enriching the field by leaving their

study aside.

I will argue that, contrary to recent trends, we need to take disasters seriously as a theoretical

category of its own in order to recognize their power over history. To do so we need to rescue the

notion of disasters as events. There is a reason why practically all definitions of disasters have

30

assumed they are somehow extra-ordinary; they can be identified as distinct from daily life, even

if they reflect the same social conditions than those of daily life. This exceptionality allows us to

perceive catastrophes as events and differentiate them from ordinary social problems: they are

focused occasions, even if not objectively delimited. This does not mean that catastrophes are

unrelated to “the larger forces that shape society.” It is true that classical analyses of disasters as

events failed to consider the social conditions and processes that shape disasters; but we do not

need to reject the idea of event in order to include this additional aspect. It is our understanding

of what is an event that should be revisited, and for this we need to examine Historical

Sociology.

Philip Abrams was the first to claim the event as a useful category for sociology. Abrams

argued that it is clear that the idea of a process is arrived at only by way of the idea of events,

therefore sociologists interested in processes and structure should not leave them aside (Abrams

1982). For him “an event is a portentous outcome; it is a transformation device between past and

future. It has eventuated from the past and it signifies for the future” (Abrams 1982: 191).

Sewell (2005), who is probably the best known defender of the event in sociology, argues that

events are not an objective reality, but an observed reality that depends on cultural schemes (he

follows anthropologist Sahlins (1976) in this). And finally Abbot, in a recent defense of the

event, also argues that events are abstractions, opposing its definition to occurrences, the actual

happenings that we use as reference points to indicate that an event has taken place (Abbot 2001:

8). In order to recover the notion of events, then, we do not have to go back to classic

preconceptions of disasters. On the contrary, events are a notion than considers disasters´ social

roots.

31

To approach catastrophes as events in this dissertation I rely specially on the ideas of

historical sociologist William Sewell, who defines events as “sequences of occurrences that

result in transformations of structures” (Sewell 2005: 227). This means that there is a whole

sequence of occurrences that constitutes the disaster-as-an-event worth of social science inquiry.

However, not any kind of occurrence may constitute an event, but only those that significantly

transform social structures (Sewell 2005: 100). Events studied by those who follow this eventful

sociology approach have rarely been disasters but instead are typically revolutions and political

unrest.12

However, the potential of the study of disasters for this type of research is clear.

Interestingly, the very first sociologists to study disasters saw them exactly like this. Samuel

Prince’s study on the Halifax catastrophe, aptly called Catastrophe and Social Change, describes

a ship explosion in the Canadian town of Halifax, but also provides a detailed account of the

recovery and changes after the event. He argues that people are intrinsically conservative and

reluctant to change, but that disaster creates a “state of fluidity” that opens social life for change.

He concludes that catastrophe always means social change, even if there is not always progress

(Prince, 1920, p. 21). Second, Lowell Carr published a pioneer paper entitled “Disaster and the

Sequence-Pattern Concept of Social Change” (Carr 1932) where he argued that a disaster “is not

a single event or even a single kind of event: it is a series of events, linked one with another

(…)”, and thus connected disasters directly to social change, arguing that: “social change is not

an episode, a protrusion, so to speak; it is a series, a cycle of events no one of which is competent

to represent the whole” (Carr 1932: 215-216). Unfortunately, although mentioned now and then

as pioneers of the field, no one has built on Prince or Carr’s ideas on disaster. As usually happens

with scientific fields, certain ideas and frameworks fail to develop due to the larger social

12

While I have not found a single study on eventful sociology that specifically deals with a natural or technological disaster, the closest case is Wagner-Pacifici’s study on 9/11.

32

context, and in this case it was the World Wars and the Cold War that set the direction of the

field on a different path.13

Going back to Sewell and Sahlins, there are several points of their studies of eventful

sociology that are of great importance for understanding catastrophes as events. First, we need

to re-think the relationship between events and the recurrent patterned arrangements that

sociology calls structure. Sahlins critiques that “for a certain anthropology, as for a certain

history, it seemed that ‘event’ and ‘structure’ could not occupy the same epistemological space.

The event was conceived as anti-structural, the structure as nullifying the event” (Sahlins (1976)

in Sewell 2005: 199). This critique could be directed at disaster studies without changing a

comma; turning from disasters to structure (where the “larger forces that shape society” rest) has

made them blind to disasters themselves. But for Sewell, as for Sahlins and Abrams, each

category implies and requires the other; events are transformations of structure, therefore they

presuppose structure. Because events are not just any occurrences but rather the specific type of

occurrence (or sequence of occurrences) that produces change, they can be easily recognized as

those occurrences that violate the expectations generated by structure. Moreover, their

consequences can only be interpreted within the terms of the structures in place. If this is so, it is

true that structures define events, that is, that disaster’s causes are within society. But, it is also

true that events have the power to re-define and reshape such structures (Sewell 2005: 200). In

the beautiful words of Phillip Abrams, “an event is a moment of becoming at which action and

13

As I mentioned before, sociological research on disasters only took force after the 1950s, when the US Military started to fund it. Prince’s serious argument in his book that suffering was the medium for progress because it was inspired by the suffering of Christ may have also contributed to the lack of interest in his work. In the case of Carr, he was a systemic (System’s theory) and we all know what happened to those views in American sociology (they went nowhere).

33

structure meet. The designation of a happening as an event indicates that the meeting has been

judged peculiarly forceful.” (Abrams 1982: 192).

Second, Sewell’s eventful temporality assumes that events are normally path dependent, that

what has happened at an earlier point in time will affect the possible outcomes of a sequence of

events occurring at a later point in time. However, events must be assumed to be capable of

changing not only the balance of causal forces in operation, but also the very logic informing

how consequences follow from occurrences; “because the causalities that operate in social

relations depend at least in part on the contents and relations of cultural categories, events have

the power to transform social causality” (Sewell 2005: 101). It is also fruitful to understand the

relationship between catastrophic events and path dependence. Because of catastrophe, new

options may become cheaper or easier due to destruction of previous infrastructure or sources of

power, allowing decisions or negotiations to be made from scratch. Consequently, it has been

argued that disasters should be seen as precipitants of critical junctures, loosely defined as a

period of significant change that leads to new institutional legacies or sets the entire political

system onto a new trajectory (Stuart-Olson and Gawronski 2003).

Third, Sewell points out that one of the key features of events is that they are usually

unexpected. Change, says Sewell, tends to be clustered into relatively intense bursts. Events

begin with a rupture of some kind, a “surprising break with routine practice” (Sewell 2005: 226).

Risk sociology and its emphasis on disasters as a kind of social problem has failed to see this. It

is precisely the fact that catastrophes violate the expectations of structure that makes disasters so

empowered to change it. Most happenings, even if strange, can be absorbed by the existing

structure and, rather than change it, they simply reproduce the structure in place. They can be

explained as exceptions, repressed or simply disregarded, in which cases they reproduce

34

structure and should not be considered events. When this cannot be done, these happenings (or

sequences of happenings) result in durable transformations of structure and become events. In

these cases, events are also interpreted in terms of the previous structure, but they are so

traumatic that by doing so they change the structure that provided the initial context for the

occurrence. Therefore, moments of accelerated change are initiated and carried forward by

historical events. Sometimes the events are culminations of processes long under way, but they

typically do more than just carry gradual and cumulative social change to its end. They tend to

transform social relations in ways that could not fully be predicted from the gradual changes

before them. Therefore, if we want to understand a disaster as an event, we need to ask whether

the unexpected rupture generated, accelerated or redirected structural change or not.

Of course, we must take into account that disasters may effect changes in some spheres of

social life and not others. Here Sewell’s view on events is also useful because he believes it is

important to recognize structures as multiple. All happenings have the potential to reproduce and

change structure, even at the same time. Multiple notions of structure allow us to follow the areas

in which a disaster is more likely to produce change. Otherwise, it would be difficult to

determine when a happening should be regarded as an event, rather than simply as an incident

that reproduced existing structure. For example, an earthquake can reaffirm notions of gender,

and nonetheless change patterns of class by destroying private property. Studies on eventful

sociology have concentrated on tracing changes in symbolic and cultural schemas and modes of

power, but we can also use this approach to understand changes in other areas as well, such as

the political arena and institutions such as the state.

In fact, assuming that events are normally path-dependent does not mean that causal

structures are uniform. Radical contingency seems essential for an eventful view. “Contingent,

35

unexpected, and inherently unpredictable events, this view assumes, can undo or alter the most

apparently durable trends of history” (Sewell 2005: 102). However, contingency should not be

confused with randomness. Contingency simply means that something is neither impossible nor

necessary; it means accepting that things could have been different. To assume contingency does

not mean that everything is always changing; on the contrary, even the most radical ruptures are

interlaced with remarkable continuities. And structures that are transformed by events are always

a transformation of previous structures (Sewell 2005: 103). But still, research in this dissertation

will show that change is contingent on decisions and choices selected during these unexpected

events.

Closing on this issue, it is by looking to historical sociology that disaster studies can enrich

our understanding of catastrophes’ relationship with social change, and specifically changes in

the state. To focus on this aspect of catastrophe we need to recover the concept of disasters as

events. Understanding disasters as events means it is necessary to place disasters in time, which

can greatly enrich our understanding of how disasters are related to broader social processes,

such as state-building.

The Role of Physical Destruction

Another important insight of Sewell’s theory for the study of disasters is the importance of

the material world. One of the critiques that Sewell offers to Shalins’ theory of eventful change

is that it does not treat material resources as part of the structure. For Sewell, resources are both

human and nonhuman, virtual (symbolic) and non-virtual, even if their condition as resources

capable of producing and reproducing structure is not wholly intrinsic in their material existence.

“Nonhuman resources have a material existence that is not reducible to rules of schemas, but the

36

activation of material things as resources, the determination of their value and social power is

dependent on the cultural schemas that inform their social use” (Sewell 2005: 135). Here Sewell

is referring to the possibilities of, for example, a rock to become a talisman, therefore becoming

an object of power. But I will argue that the same can be said of the environment (both natural

and built) in which a community lives. Material things are resources for notions of race, gender,

class, and power; including buildings, landmarks, urban spaces, etc. (Gieryn 2000). Sewell

argues that the transformation of cultural schemas results from unexpected changes of resources

(Sewell 2005: 217), which means that structural change does not appear on a purely cultural

level, it is inextricably wrapped up with the marking, use, and dynamics of resources. Resources

are dragged into new constellations of meaning when the course of action does not go as

expected. This can be said of a talisman, but also of a whole city. As we will see in Chapter 3,

once destroyed, the possibilities for new meanings and new distributions of power in space are

endless.

The spatial reality of disasters appeared to pioneer researchers as something obvious, but it

has been obviated by notions that see disasters as socially constructed and allow a more diffuse

definition for it. The Sociology of Risk in particular, has repeatedly argued that “nature no longer

exists” (Beck 1995; Tierney 1999), implying that modernity means a type of control over nature

that is, or could be, total. For sociologists, there is simply no such a thing as a natural disaster,

since they are seen as completely dependent on human decisions (Squires and Hartman 2006).

Quarantelli himself has argued that without vulnerable communities “an earthquake is simply a

movement of land” and therefore “a disaster is not a physical happening, it is a social occasion”

(Quarantelli 2006: 343). But there is really nothing simple about an earthquake; it is a sudden,

unpredicted and highly destructive “movement of land.” Even if population is prepared to face it,

37

it involves a strong recognition of the uncertainty of human relations with nature, technology,

and the physical world in general. Only someone who has never gone through one could argue

that there is not a physical component to it. Of course, I understand that what radical

constructivists want to highlight is that disasters reflect the social characteristics of the

communities involved more than the characteristics of the onset agent. But there is no need to

completely deny the role of the physical world in order to make such a claim. I will argue that

the real issue is not whether earthquakes are either a natural or a social event; neither concept is

broad enough to comprehend the whole complexity of the issue. Paraphrasing Abrams (1982) we

could say that a disaster is an event is in which society and its environments (natural and built)

meet; and the designation of a happening as a disaster indicates that the meeting has been judged

peculiarly forceful.

Conclusively, it might be a misnomer for sociologists to speak of “natural disasters”, but it is

also true that a purely sociological (constructed definition) of disaster is unattainable. In

practice, a disaster always has a physical (non-social) component (Stallins 1995). This does not

mean a return to old ideas about disasters as external shocks, but rather recognizing that the

social is embedded in a material world and that physical or non-social factors are sometimes

necessary for understanding human action and social processes (even if not sufficient) (Goldman

and Schurman 2000; Pellow and Nyseth 2013).

Unfortunately, sociology has shown little concern for the physical world, with the notable

exception of environmental sociology. Most of the body of sociological research is caught up in

an anthropocentric ontology that is stubbornly resistant to the possibility that something different

than “the social” can shape or influence human societies. However, Thomas Gieryn (2000) in his

annual review “A Space for Place in Sociology” has revealed that social studies still show,

38

indivertibly, how materiality matters to social life: stabilizing and giving durability to social

categories, arranging patterns of network-formation and collective action, embodying and

securing otherwise intangible cultural norms, identities, memories and values, spawning

collective action, among others functions. “These consequences” – claims the author – “result

uniquely (but incompletely) from material forms assembled at a particular spot” (Gieryn 2000:

474). Gieryn does not deal in depth with the destruction of space, but he does explain how

important space is to feel security and well-being and adds as a conclusion that “the loss of place,

it follows, must have devastating implications for individual and collective identity, memory,

and history” (Gieryn 2000: 482).

Anthropologists in the field are the most conscious about this aspect of disaster. They see

disasters as a “constructed feature of humans systems”, but are more sensitive to the fact that

“disasters occur at the interface of society, technology and environment, and are fundamentally

the outcomes of the interactions of these features” (Oliver-Smith 1996). And it is this scope of

the role of the physical world in societies that has allowed anthropologists to relate disaster with

the possibilities for cultural change (Oliver-Smith 1996; Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999). In

fact, physical destruction should be at the core of any study of catastrophes and social change.

When we discuss the long term effect of disasters the real issue is whether this “forceful

meeting” significantly alters the relationships between society and its environments, how people

interpret and experience the changes in those environments, and how this change affects social

structure. The fact that in catastrophe destroys infrastructure can have a vast impact on networks,

culture, psychological health, family relations, etc. The sudden lack of bridges and highways can

completely change the economy of a region. Scarcity of basic products can generate strong

tension between competing groups. The lack of communications can affect the ability to control

39

parts of the territory. Overall, the sudden destruction of the physical space in which social life

develops means either significant effort to go return to the prior status quo or the arrangement of

a new normal, at least in certain aspects.

Conclusively, when studying the roots of disaster a purely social definition might be

sufficient, but one that examines its consequences must incorporate destruction. The

environment (again, physical and built) might be a social construction, but it is one in which the

physical world is crucial. Therefore I will argue that catastrophes should be seen as social

occurrences as well as physical occurrences. Or, in other words, a social event in which the

environment is crucial. The reality of destruction, debris and rubble is testimony enough of this.

As I will show in the next chapters, decisions made after the moment of destruction will be

embedded in this physical reality and therefore it must be taken into account.

To summarize this section, the main contribution of sociology to the study of disasters has

been the notion that disasters do not just happen, they are rooted in the structure of society. For

sociology, there are no natural disasters, all disasters are socially constructed. This means that

disasters are the consequence of human decisions, and more often than not these are state

decisions. But unfortunately, this perspective has led sociology to replace the study of disasters

with the study of risk almost completely (Quarantelli 2006). For the focus of this dissertation in

particular, the idea that disasters should be seen as a kind of social problem is not useful at all.

With this I do not mean that disasters are not the expectable product of broader social forces. I

mean that to study disasters and their consequences we need to recognize them as events that are

temporally and spatially situated, even if they are rooted in a broader context. Also, this will

allow us to see the intrinsic connection between catastrophes and changes in the state.

40

CATASTROPHE AND THE STATE

In this dissertation I will not deal with social change after catastrophe in every dimension but

rather concentrate on the effect of catastrophe on state capacities and state-society relations. And

as I have mentioned before, there is no concrete literature that directly concerns itself with this

topic. However, we can conclude from the previous section that under the risk paradigm states

are regarded as responsible for catastrophe. In fact, as I mentioned in the introduction, the state

in the last century has been increasingly held accountable for disasters’ destruction (Moss 2002).

People blame the failure of hazard management on the state’s inability to enforce appropriate

regulation. Consequently, when things go wrong the state is put to the test. And what happens

afterward? Do states become weaker or stronger? To approach this issue, I have taken as a

starting point bellicist theories of state building.

Catastrophes as War

According to Tilly’s highly influential theory, “states make war and war makes states” (see

(Tilly 1985; Tilly 1990). For him, extraction and struggle over the means of war created the

central structures of modern states because of the creation of new and better state capacities. In

this dissertation, I will argue that other type of “battles” and “threats” can have a similar effect.

Mechanisms, I argue, are similar to war. Catastrophes prompt new efforts to increase state

revenue, along with the development of new bureaucracies and administrative bodies to

administer such revenue and implement the policies required to win the war (in this case “against

nature”) and make reconstruction, and ultimately recovery, possible.

Analyses of disasters using metaphor of war have been present since the beginning of the

field of disaster sociology. The military were the first to take an interest in studying disasters;

41

their concern was to understand how people would react to a nuclear attack and saw the analogy

as obvious. But the metaphor of war lost potential once sociology started to reject visions of

disasters as external shocks, and moved its interest away from the moment of disaster itself. In

truth, the comparison was not only forgotten but was strongly opposed by the constructionist

approach that sees disasters as diffuse and focuses on studying their social roots. But if we

choose to study catastrophes consequences, an analogy with war might be extremely helpful.

War has for long been the subject of exploration by social sciences and research has easily found

patterns and relationships with the building of state capacities. Such patterns are particularly

relevant for the study of catastrophes.

The comparison is plausible because wars are, in many ways, catastrophes. Certainly, there

are important differences in spatiality and temporality; most catastrophes affect certain areas of a

country while wars involve a whole country, and most disasters are sudden, while wars demand

certain preparation. However, the two have important things in common. To start, both present

significant disruption and threat to social order. Just as in wars, catastrophes threaten the state’s

basic role of monopolizing violence, and hence to protect citizens from physical harm. This is

especially true where disaster amounts to catastrophe. For survivors, there is a before and after a

catastrophe; their lives have been turn up side down, sometimes quite literally, and they know it

has been the end of the world as they knew it. Catastrophes, like wars, are “all-encompassing

events,” sweeping across every aspect of social life (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999).

Also, both wars and catastrophes are similar in that both pose the threat of violence for the

population. Because the desired aim of war and state-making is essentially to provide protection

to the population from such threats, it becomes plausible to compare the two. Tilly, himself

claims that "efforts to war" are the first mechanism responsible for this state-building effect, even

42

before war has taken place. And Centeno, who has explored Tilly’s hypothesis in Latin America,

has concluded that “war itself is not necessary; it is the threat of war that often produces positive

state-building consequences” (Centeno 2002: 266). For example, Thies (2005) took this premise

and explored the issue, finding that in Latin America the mere threat of war has had positive

state-building consequences. In Latin America, he argues, moments of “interstate rivalry” and

“perceived threat” have had a positive effect on the state’s extractive capacity, especially in long-

term enduring rivalries. To make use of Tilly in other contexts, he concludes, we do not have to

apply him literally. The idea of threat, then, is a clear link between wars and catastrophes. In the

case of disasters triggered by natural phenomena, the threat is permanent and unavoidable. The

state can manage the effect of earthquakes and volcano eruptions, but it cannot prevent them

from happening. Also, even if good hazard management avoids one hundred percent of

casualties, destruction of infrastructure is unavoidable in the case of tsunamis and volcano

eruptions (at least today). In this vein, studies have shown that the risks of disasters that have

never happened to a population (or have not happened in a long time) are harder to construct as a

believable threat; for example, the possibility of nuclear accident in the United States. In

addition, we know that people avoid thinking about events whose probability is below a certain

threshold (Kreps 1984; Stallins 1995; Klinenberg 2002). On the contrary, repetitive disasters

such as hurricanes and earthquakes can be used consistently by the political system as a threat,

especially in the period right after they have caused a catastrophe (Stallings 1995; Gill 2007).

Furthermore, the logics of attribution of responsibility and guilt might work differently for

different types of disaster agents such as technological versus natural, with natural disasters

resounding harder on the state (Stone 1997).

43

And finally, another similarity between war and catastrophes is destruction. As in the case of

wars, after a catastrophe a state must confront both reconstructing infrastructure and recovering

economic activity. The state plays a pivotal role in both processes, not only by rebuilding

infrastructure or loaning money to do so, but also by deciding what the framework that will

guide this activity is going to be. And it is in this area where the similarity has been more

commonly drawn. The aftermath of disaster is commonly compared to a post war environment.

In Chile, presidents have used this repeatable narrative in post disaster speeches and it is a

common place for the press to frame reconstruction (El Correo July 12, 1960; July 14, 1960).

As this dissertation will show, discussions on how to “get back to normal” rarely mean exactly

that. What we found is that a new “normal” is discussed, and at the center of this discussion is

the material reality of debris. As I have argued previously, this destruction is crucial to

understanding catastrophes’ effect on society. Other types of disasters with diffuse crises and

without physical destruction may not have the same effect. Klinenberg’s (2002) description of

the 1995 heat wave is a good example of this. In this case, officials denied there was a disaster in

process, and it was not treated as one since damage was not visible or accounted for easily. I

will argue then, that the real issue is not the nature of the disaster agent per se, but whether or not

it significantly alters the relationships between society and its environment (both built and

natural). And, secondly, it is important to see how people interpret and experience the changes in

those environments, which largely depends on whether they are perceived as a threat to the

community and the survival of the state or not.14

Of course, interstate competition is not something that wars and catastrophes have in

common. That is, we do not have different rulers or nation states trying to kill each other, but

14

A similar argument has been articulated in Kroll-Smith, Couch and Levine. 2001. “Technological Hazards and Disasters”, in Handbook of Environmental Sociology. Greenwood.

44

instead only one state facing the aftermath of destruction. Furthermore, in the context of

competition between warlords, it could be expected that a catastrophe would be detrimental to

the affected warlord’s odds of winning. In other words, catastrophe is not going to help a state

fighting a war. Competition then, crucial in Tilly’s theory, is not present in catastrophe, at least

not in the same way. Hence, Tilly’s framework needs to be rethought in order to truly

comprehend other types of threats. Because this difference is so crucial that it might be

considered to render the framework useless for this analysis, another possibility would be

building a whole new one. I will argue that the resulting theory might end up evidencing

precisely such a new framework, but to begin thinking about mechanisms for state-building Tilly

and the bellicists are the best starting point.

Concluding, using the bellicist framework to understand the effect of catastrophe on the state

is reasonable because wars are similar to catastrophes in many ways. Certainly, there are

important differences in spatiality and temporality, but to begin thinking about mechanisms for

state-building this provides the optimal starting point.

Catastrophe and State Building, How does it Work?

As I explained in the previous section, the problems of war and catastrophe are different, but

the threat is similar: violence and physical destruction. The difference presented by catastrophe is

that it does not come from another group of humans, it comes from nature. Is it reasonable to

expect states to react similarly to both? As I have mentioned repeatedly, there is no literature

answering this question in the Sociology of Disasters. However, historians have dealt with the

premise that controlling nature seems to be a force for state building in and of itself, even if no

disaster has happened. For example, both in Germany (Warde 2006) and Spain (Wing 2015)

45

studies have shown that the modern state owes much to forest administration. The systematic

management of forests grew along with the militarization and expansion of bureaucratic state

power. The management of rivers has told a similar story of the development of state capacity;

taming the waters has been regarded as crucial for India (Shah 2009), Taiwan (Ku 2011), and the

expansion of the American states in the Midwest (Woten 2009). Also, studies show that since the

nineteen century nation states have accepted an expanding agenda of responsibilities in relation

to nature, both as a steward of natural areas as well as a protector from nature when it becomes

threatening to people. Accordingly, the 20th century witnessed a spectacular rise in national

activities to deal with the environment, many of them created after disasters. In the case of the

United States, for example, the number of presidential declarations of "major disasters" has

steadily increased over the past century, “federalizing the costs” of catastrophe (Platt 1999). (See

also: Frank et al. 2000; Steinberg 2002; Moss 2002). What this shows is that controlling nature

is a problem that challenges states to be better states; it is –like wars- a test of state strength in

which states must become stronger in order to avoid risking collapse.

But how does this happen? Tilly claims that the central dynamic that links wars and state-

building goes like this:

“the formation of standing armies provided the largest single incentive to extraction

and the largest single means of state coercion over the long run of European state-

making. Recurrently we find a chain of causation running from (1) change or

expansion in land armies to (2) new efforts to extract resources from the subject

population to (3) the development of new bureaucracies and administrative

innovations to (4) resistance from the subject population to (5) renewed coercion to

(6) durable increases in the bulk or attractiveness of the state” (Tilly 1975:74 ).

46

In essence, Tilly’s argument is that war-making, extraction and bureaucracies to organize

capital accumulation interacted to shape state-building. Wars require money, that is the bottom

line. Money meant taxation and bureaucracies to collect and administrate this money, as well as

to organize and fight wars. I will argue that catastrophes work similarly; overcoming disasters

and reconstructing infrastructure means money. To prevent catastrophes we also need money,

but more importantly we need to severely regulate and restrict freedom for the population. This

means states need to penetrate their societies further and further in increasingly complex ways in

order to ensure compliance with new regulations. Then, to organize both reconstruction and

disaster prevention, we need strong and reliable state bureaucracies. State bureaucracies are

created or strengthened (given new responsibilities) to deal with the aftermath of catastrophes,

and extraction is necessary to be able to fulfill these new state tasks, including paying for the

personnel, and the materials, etc. Conclusively, it is plausible to expect that there is an

interaction between disaster management, coercion and extraction that can also lead to state-

building (Illustration 3).

Illustration 3: Theoretical Model

47

Because of this interaction between threats, coercion and extraction, Tilly compares states

with racketeers; someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction (Tilly

1985:171). The threats against which a state protects its citizens are consequences of its own

activities, essentially war risking. Similarly, I showed earlier that catastrophes are the result of

state policies; vulnerability is socially produced, it depends on choices made by decision makers.

The difference is that states can choose to go to wars in a way that it is not possible for

catastrophes triggered by natural agents. But in both cases, the state uses this risk to tax and

impose new restrictions in its population; all in the name of safety. This is why wars produce a

displacement effect that moves the accepted amount of regulation and extraction to a new –

higher- point. In this dissertation, I will show that catastrophes are also similar to wars in this

way. As with wars, states do not create the threat of catastrophe out of nothing, on the contrary,

they are mostly responsible for its consequences. But typically, governments are able to use

catastrophe to be able to construct the notion of needing the state in order to confront it. When

negotiating with different groups in society, the state has to argue convincingly that the best

protection society can get from this threat comes from itself. Still, we know very little about tax

policy changes after disasters. Catastrophes might affect the ability of the state to collect

revenue, for example. It could prompt the state to create taxes (to pay for reconstruction),

eliminate taxes (to help people pay for the rebuilding of their homes) or both. Also, rentier states,

which derive all or a substantial portion of their revenues from the sale of natural resources,

could see their sources of revenue greatly affected if the catastrophe hurt a critical industry. But

aside from taxes, we do know that other regulations are usually the legacy of catastrophes; cases

have demonstrated changes in security, housing, health and social welfare policies. As we saw in

48

many of such cases, catastrophes allow states to increase the level of regulation in all of these

areas, sometimes forcing it to take control of issues it had no authority over before.

Additionally, once a new tax is created or a new institution is put into action it is very

unlikely that its creation will be reversed once the crisis is over. This is what Tilly calls

displacement effect and others have called ratchet effect: “when public revenues and

expenditures rose abruptly during war, they set a new, higher floor beneath which peacetime

revenues and expenditures do not sink” (Tilly 1985:180). War making, claims Tilly, not only

provides the main stimulus to collect more taxes at a specific moment in time (in Western

Europe), they also set a new standard for acceptable taxation that remains after war is over. The

same happens with institutions and bureaucracies created for the management of these funds and,

to be able to make war, they remain as active tools for the state. In catastrophes, we should

expect the same effect. As I have found in the case of Chile, the state has never taken a step back

after developing new institutions for catastrophe management.15

Finally, like wars, catastrophes’ effect on state development can work through at least two

mechanisms: imposing certain needs and being invoked to achieve political goals. In terms of

needs, catastrophes highlight certain problems with security, communications, and construction

regulation, among others issues. The second mechanism is political; catastrophes are used by the

government as an excuse for achieving goals. It must be pointed out that these mechanisms are

not mutually exclusive. CORFO, for example (the biggest institution created after an earthquake

in Chile) was developed to deal with the recovery of the economy, a need by everyone's

15

This effect probably happens after all increases in state power, no matter what causes it. Higgs (1989 ) and later Landis (1999) have shown how, in the US, once state spheres of power grow they seldom take a step back. Nonetheless, both relate this with moments of crisis, not necessarily with natural disasters nor with war.

49

standards at the time. Yet, at the time people also remarked that the government used CORFO

and the disaster to develop an import-substitution industrialization plan, a part of the political

agenda they had been unable to accomplish prior to the disaster. As I will show in the following

chapters, the effect of catastrophe on state building is stronger when both mechanisms work

together. This is, when the earthquake happens during the term or rule of a government that has

an interest in state building efforts.

Catastrophes and State-Weakening.

Unfortunately, we are also aware that sometimes catastrophes lead to chaos and even

anarchy; Haiti’s 2010 earthquake is a good example of that. How can we explain this difference?

I will argue that explanations of the failure of the war-state-making connection in developing

countries will also shed light on the failure of the catastrophe-state-building nexus. There is little

consensus as to whether the war-making-state-making connection works in other places and

other moments in history aside from 18th century Western Europe. 16

Similarly, it is probably the

case that the link between catastrophe and state building works only in a certain context. I will

deal with this in the conclusions of this dissertation.

CONCLUSIONS

Catastrophes are social and physical events that have repercussions in the political, economic

and cultural spheres. In other words, catastrophes are “all-encompassing events” that disrupt

practically every aspect of social life. On one side, these events are inherently physical, in the

sense that they involve great amounts of destruction of the environment, both natural and built.

But on the other side, the causes of catastrophes are -at their core- social; they are always the

16

To be fair to Tilly, he never claimed that his argument was universally applicable; it is clear that he sees the outcome of the processes he describes depend on timing and context.

50

consequence of human actions (or inaction). This is why the state appears as crucial to

understand catastrophe, since decisions made in the pre-disaster moment are usually state-led. In

other words, states today are considered the ultimate responsible when disasters happen. And yet,

we really do not know what effect catastrophes have on the state, and this is what this

dissertation aims to investigate.

What I show in the next chapters is that catastrophes can have effects that are similar to what

has been describe about wars and the state, such as disruption of the existing institutional

equilibrium (for example, surrounding the state’s ability to extract revenue from society), the

state’s legitimacy to establish standards (especially in areas related to housing but not limited

thereto) and the possibilities for the creation of new state institutions. Paraphrasing Tilly,

because sociology has demonstrated that states make catastrophe, this dissertation aims to show

that the other part of his theory is also true. Much as states make catastrophes, dealing with

catastrophes makes states.

51

Chapter 2 | CULTURAL SHIFTS

“The morning of the 20th

exhibited a scene of greater distress. Only twenty houses and

one church remained standing of that large town. All the ovens had been destroyed, and

there was no bread: the governor had fled, and the people cried out that his sins had

brought down the judgment. Some went so far as to accuse the government at Santiago

and to say its tyranny had awakened God’s vengeance.”

Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in Chile During the Year of 1822 (1823: 312).

This dissertation is about catastrophes being crucial moments for state building. At the very

least, it should make it clear that this is the case for twentieth century Chile. But before we go

deep into that history I will start by acknowledging that the state has not always been regarded as

responsible for earthquakes and its consequences. As the testimony of Maria Graham shows,

before modernity responsibility for catastrophe was looked for, quite literally, above the state.

Disasters were understood as acts of God, and therefore misfortunes were not considered

manageable. Overall, the assumption was that the disastrous consequences of an earthquake were

not in the hands of society to prevent, with the possible exception of pious living. This

interpretation of catastrophe meant a different approach to reconstruction and post-disaster

management than current interpretations of disasters as ruled by the laws of nature, and therefore

possible to comprehend and even to elude. As I have mentioned before, today we understand that

it is because of bad planning and bad decision making that catastrophes happen, and therefore

responsibility should be looked for on the ground. Disasters are no longer God´s punishment, but

they constitute society´s failure. And increasingly, they are interpreted as the state´s failure or

even a state crime (Mileti 1999; Moss 2002). Risk calculation, then, will appear in the twentieth

century as the secular counterpart to the religious repentance program (Luhmann 1993). When

52

did this change happen? And how did it happen? What are its consequences? That is what this

chapter is about.

I will argue that this change of paradigm was carried on by disaster. Not any disaster, but

some disasters in particular that happened at crucial times in history. It has been broadly claimed

by disaster research that the “Great Lisbon Earthquake” of 1755 was the event that prompted this

paradigm change in the West, heavily influencing the debate over modernity and deeply

changing the history of Portugal. In Chile, this paradigm change starts much later, after the

destruction of Valparaíso in 1822. This time, the disaster also affected culture at large and

changed the history of the country. In both cases, the changes were reflected in the meanings that

were assigned to the earthquake, prompting a reevaluation of existing explanations of God and

nature. As a result, we see that after these catastrophes nature starts to be perceived as a force on

its own and Man appears as a subject that can control these natural forces, or at least influence

them.

In the following sections I will use these two earthquakes to show the impact that

catastrophes can have in culture, either prompting cultural changes or accelerating such trends.

Specifically, both cases show how these catastrophes fueled the process of secularization and

rationalization of their societies. Second, I will expand on how this paradigm shift is linked to

changes on the role of the state in catastrophe, making it not only responsible for the assistance

of victims but also placing it as accountable for risk management. And finally, I will expand on

the differences between the cases to understand how these changes unfold.

53

THEORIZING CULTURAL CHANGE AND PERSISTENCE

No matter when or where they happen, catastrophes always occur within a specific social and

cultural context that determines how they are comprehended (Dynes 2000; Oliver-Smith 1996).

Survivors, who most of the times are much more abundant than victims, are faced with a

complete change of their circumstances; their world has been turn upside down. And after the

dust is down and the water has receded one of the main problems they face is: how to

comprehend the misfortune of destruction and the fortune of survival? Additionally, in

catastrophe this search for meaning is a collective endeavor; survivors share a common

misfortune, they have been damnified.17

At that moment, social and cultural context plays a

crucial role in constructing a narrative that helps make sense of the chaos brought about by

disaster. Culture gives communities guidelines to deal with different situations, including those

strange or surprising. In the words of disaster anthropologist Susanna Hoffman: “part of what

drives a culture is not that new experiences do not enter, but that the lexicon in which to place

new information captures it and transforms the new into the known” (Hoffman 1999: 302).

Therefore, most happenings, no matter how shocking, are absorbed by existing cultural

categories. In fact, research shows that even when confronted with a radical change in

circumstances, like after major catastrophes, traditions, attitudes and styles of communication

flow on with surprising normality (Hoffman 1999).

17

“damnified : “(Law) to cause loss or damage to (a person). From Old French damnifier, ultimately from Latin damnum, harm + facere, to make” (Collins English Dictionary). Unfortunately, the word damnified has almost disappeared from modern English, with the exception of rare legal texts and judicial orders. I rescue the word here because I find the distinction between been “damnified” and being a “victim” incredible useful in Spanish. While Víctima (victim) refers to “person who suffers damage attributed to external causes.” Damnificado (damnified) refers to “those who have suffered collective damage” (www.RAE.es). The fact that damnified is preferred in Spanish when talking about disasters shows how we are talking about collective misfortunes.

http://www.rae.es/

54

However, cultural change undoubtedly occurs. Most of the time, this change is gradual,

almost imperceptible and very difficult to command. But sometimes, change is abrupt and

brought about by particular events. Marshall Sahlins, who rescued the study of events in

anthropology, has argue that the great challenge when working with events “is not merely to

know how events are ordered by culture, but how, in that process, the culture is re ordered”

(Sahlins 1981: 8). In other words, it is about understanding how certain occurrences change

culture. The thing is, culture not always has the keys to absorb events and survive unscathed. No

matter how fluid, paradigms sometimes cannot meaningfully interpret what is going on. “In the

event they do not” –argues anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1981)- “the received categories are

potentially revalued in practice. At the extreme, what began as reproduction ends as

transformation” (Sahlins 1981: 67).

Catastrophes have a special talent to push paradigms that way. What was once solid and

reliable can be put off its axis (quite literally) in a moment; and when the Earth has stopped

quickening and the water has receded, we should expect to see changes in the symbolic order as

well as the material world (Oliver-Smith 1996; Hoffman 1999; Hoffman and Oliver-Smith

2002). Anthropologists have repeatedly established this when studying the effect of disaster in

different communities (Torry 1986; Oliver-Smith 1992; Bode 1977; Hoffman 1999; Germain

2011; Hoffman and Oliver-Smith 2002). In the words of anthropologist A. Oliver-Smith:

“it is frequently in extreme conditions, particularly those characterized by loss and

change, that human beings find themselves confronted with difficult existential questions.

The responses of disaster-stricken peoples invariably involve the moral and ethical core

of the belief system and include a deep delving into concepts of both social and cosmic

justice, sin and retribution, causality, the relationship of the secular to the sacred, and the

existence and nature of the divine.” (Oliver-Smith 1996: 308).

55

What we see is that with disaster, the set of meanings and explanations that present sense

may dissolve into debris as much as has the homes and churches that offered protection of other

kind (and probably, precisely because of that physical destruction). True events, then, mean

change. Its effect in culture can be thought in a similar way to the effect of trauma in personality

(Langer 1958); some occurrences become events because they change us, they are in some way

“the end of the world as we know it.” Only in this case, we are addressing shared patterns of

interpretation and conduct, not individual attitudes. Sociologist K. Erikson directly calls this

“collective trauma” and argues that it is not only due to the disaster itself, but also because of the

destruction of the community because of disaster. In other words, the shock is also due to being

ripped of the meaning that community used to hold (Erikson 1978).

To study these cultural patters social sciences have coined different concepts besides culture,

such as: mindset, mentality, discourse, paradigm and episteme (just to name a few). Roughly, we

can say that the main difference between these concepts is the level of analysis; some notions are

defined as very specific to particular communities (paradigm) or social actions (discourse),

others encompass a whole civilization (episteme). Because it is a term more commonly

understood by people of all fields, I tend relay more in the term paradigm. I understand paradigm

in the broader sense that the word has achieved with time, not merely as a “disciplinary matrix”

(Kuhn 1962) but as a philosophical or theoretical framework for knowledge. In its more

straightforward definition, a paradigm is a pattern for thought and action, and that is what I will

show in this chapter. I will also show that paradigms change when new data is simply not

absorbable according to old beliefs. It is not that there is no accumulation, but that paradigm

changes do not occur by accumulating data according to old theories until suddenly it becomes a

new one. Instead, they happen in intense bursts.

56

Overall, this chapter tells the story of specific communities struggling to make sense of

something extraordinary, and the consequences of the new paradigms that arise because of this

“trauma.”

THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE OF 1755, THE PARADIGM OF MODERN DISASTER

It was the catholic holiday of All Saints Day. At around 9.40 am people in Lisbon were

preparing for the celebrations; candles were being lit in altars and congregations were attending

church services. Suddenly, the earth violently shook the city and the whole kingdom. The

panorama was dreadful:

Dozens were crushed by falling timber and a rain of marble as columns, capitals,

arches, buttresses, and massive blocks of stone crumbled. Many rushed to escape

to open ground, but some refused to abandon the church and frantically prayed

and begged for divine forgiveness amid the turmoil, convinced that the end, the

long-heralded Apocalypse, was at hand (Shrady 2009: 14).

People ran for open ground in panic, only to be submerged by giant waves. And the final blow

was fire, the debris of many buildings were ignited by the remains of candles, given rise to an

intense inferno that lasted for five days and finished what was left of Lisbon. At the end of it all,

one of the largest and most important cities in Europe had been almost completely destroyed

(Kendrick 1956; Brooks 1994; Braun and Radner 2005; Shrady 2008; Paice 2008).

Seismologist estimate the 1755 Lisbon earthquake had a magnitude around 8.7 Ms, with

epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean.18

By anyone´s standards this is a huge earthquake, releasing

almost the same amount of energy that the 2010 disaster in Chile. But it is even more impressive

18

According to data from de USGS (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1755_11_01.php). A report from the National information Service of the University of California (Nisee) argues that it could have been even 9.0 Ms. With epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 km WSW of Cape St Vincent. (Nisee 1998).

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1755_11_01.php

57

for Western Europe, not considered a high-risk area for earthquakes and much less so for

gigantic tidal waves (BGS 2006).19

Also, it is shockingly clear that the Lisbon catastrophe was

one of the deadliest events in European history until then, with different sources placing the

death toll in Lisbon alone between 10,000 and 100,000. Recent calculations have estimated the

lower bound estimate as at least at 30,000 for the city alone (Pereira 2006).20

Outside of Lisbon

the panorama was not much better; destruction and death was widespread throughout the

country. Predictably, the economic impact of such damage was enormous; destroying between

32 percent and 48 percent of the Portuguese GDP (Pereira 2006). Overall, it is clear that the

event was devastating for the kingdom (Kendrick 1956; Brooks 1994; Braun and Radner 2005;

Pereira 2006; Shrady 2008; Paice 2008).

But the circumstances that lead the earthquake to be such a significant moment in European

history cannot be found in the magnitude of the impact alone. In fact, there had been other

remarkable disasters in the area previous to 1755, most notoriously the 1531 catastrophe that also

destroyed Lisbon (BGS 2006). According to geologists, the intensity of the 1531 event was

larger than the one in 1755 (Justo and Salwa 1998; Miranda et al. 2012), and yet, this previous

earthquake was quickly forgotten. The 1755 disaster, on the contrary, left an imprint not only in

Portuguese history but European history, arts, sciences, and culture at large. Even today,

historical research about the event continues to unfold. So, why is Lisbon´s 1755 earthquake so

important compared to other earthquakes?

19

The Azores-Gibraltar transform fault (which marks the boundary between the African and the Eurasian continental plates) is not remarkably active, and tsunamis are even stranger phenomena in the Atlantic. But three or four other major disasters have been counted in the last 300 years that have affected the Lisbon Area (BGS 2006). 20

Attempts to calculate the number of deaths are usually not reliable because of the destruction of almost all of the city records by the fire. However, A. Pereira (2006) recently obtained more rigorous estimates by combining several sources and correcting them using parish memories and other sources.

58

As eventful anthropologists and sociologists have shown, events will be different from

regular happenings largely depending on how they are interpreted (Sahlins 1976; Sewell 2005).

And this interpretation depends primarily on the existing cultural context. The Lisbon earthquake

of 1755 happened at a moment in European history that we have come to known as the

Enlightenment; a period characterized by -among other things- a break with tradition,

particularly religious authority. For Foucault, this is the time right before the classical episteme

collapses and the modern episteme takes form. It is, indeed, a period of change in the intellectual

arena, with the birth of positivist sciences and the emergence of the notion of Man, as a factual,

contingent reality. In this context, the Lisbon disaster was not so much interpreted in a particular

way, but in light of a particular conflict. And in doing so, it heavily influenced the way this

conflict moved on, and the following paradigmatic and epistemic changes.

Philosophical Aftershocks

At the time of the Lisbon earthquake Portugal was considered a backwater of the

enlightenment, Lisbon a center of superstition and idolatry, and the young King Dom Jose I of

Braganca a puppet of the Jesuits. According to Portugal’s historian C. R Boxer, Portugal was

“more priest ridden than any other country in the world, with the possible exception of Tibet”

(Boxer 1963: 189). In this context, the immediate reaction of some Portuguese people was to run

into churches to seek God´s forgiveness, convinced as they were that the apocalypse was at hand

(Shrady 2008). The King himself turned to prayer and repentance, since he was –apparently-

completely disconsolate and paralyzed with fear (Brooks 1994; Shrady 2008). Priests, of course,

took advantage of the situation and the very afternoon of the event found them walking around

the city exhorting people to repent and confess their sins, in order to placate God’s wrath

59

(Kendrick 1956; Paice 2008; Shrady 2008). “Lisbon, people were told, had been a very sinful

city indeed” (Kendrick 1956: 123).

In this context, the Lisbon disaster became the opportunity for enlighten minds to spread

their ideas, using the disaster as a starting point to question religious beliefs and Church power.

The event opened a philosophical debate and received great notice by almost every intellectual in

Europe, including Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant. The discussion centered in the question of why

God permits the manifestation of evil (problem of theodicy); and consequently, on the power or

powerlessness of Men versus Providence (Bassnett 2006; Neiman 2002). The thing is, the

catastrophe showed that God cannot be both benevolent and omnipotent. If God is able to

remove evil, why did He let the disaster happen? If it was meant to be a punishment, is He not

benevolent? Voltaire claimed that the earthquake should force us to accept that evil exists in the

world, and sometimes prevails (Voltaire 1759). He particularly discussed this point with the

optimists, Leibnitz and Pope, who thought that “whatever is, is right.” Examining this idea in

light of the quake he asks: “if this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?”

(Voltaire 1759). He concludes that:

In a world governed by the wisest laws / Lasting disorders, woes that never end / With

our vain pleasures, real sufferings blend. (Voltaire 1755).

Alternately, Rousseau believed that if we must choose between a benevolent God and an

omnipotent one, we should justify His goodness and not His power (Rousseau 2007; Brightman

1919). He expressed his view on a letter to Voltaire, arguing that “most of our physical ills are

still our own work” (Rousseau 2007: 51). He then goes on with what is arguably the first

definition of vulnerability:

60

Admit, for example, that nature did not construct twenty thousand houses of six to

seven stories there, and that if the inhabitants of this great city had been more

equally spread out and more lightly lodged, the damage would have been much

less and perhaps of no account. (Rousseau 2007 , 51).

Hence, an important consequence of these philosophical questioning was that disasters were

starting to be understood as social events (Dynes 2000). In Kant´s texts on Lisbon, we see the

same logic undermining optimism but saving providence (Larsen 2006). “If humans are building

on inflammable material” –asked Kant- “over a short time the whole splendor of their edifices

will be falling down by shaking. However, is this reason to blame providence for it?” (Kant

1756). The radicalism of this vision is that it completely differentiates God´s responsibility from

nature´s responsibility, and most importantly, from Man´s responsibility (Larsen 2006; Neiman

2002). For philosopher Susan Neiman, this shows that the distinction between natural and moral

evil was born around the Lisbon earthquake (Neiman 2002). In her book Evil in Modern Thought

she locates the beginning of “the modern” in the intellectual reactions to Lisbon, precisely

because of the attempts to divide responsibility clearly. “Modern conceptions of evil” –claims

Neiman”- were developed in the attempt to stop blaming God for the state of the world, and to

take responsibility for it in our own” (Neiman 2002: 4). After Lisbon, Man recognizes that every

single event, in all respects, is produced by himself, and “therefore must accept himself the full

responsibility for its own hardships” (Kant 1756). After the 1755 earthquake, it will be the

absence and not the presence of the divine in nature what will define modern philosophy. Instead

of a divine thelos, it is the enigmatic character of nature what constitutes the condition of

possibility for the human being to be really human (Larsen 2006: 364).

With a different framework, sociology has also highlighted this, arguing that modern society

considers danger from the point of view of risk, and takes it seriously only as risk. Risks are

61

different from dangers in one fundamental way, while danger is something that people undergo

with no real control over it; a risk perspective assumes that the future depends on decisions to be

made at the present (Luhmann 1993; Beck 1992). For Luhmann (1993), this means that risk is

literally the functional equivalent for old sin, inasmuch as it can serve to explain how misfortune

comes about. An explanation that manages without religion, an explanation that perceives the

normal in the function of technology, in the conditions permitting rationality, and above all, in

the dependence of the future in the making of decisions, is the mark of modernity. Risk

calculation then, is the secular counterpart to the religious repentance-minimization program

(Luhmann 1993).

Conclusively, we can even say that what we call today “risk society” (Beck 1992; Luhmann

1993; Giddens 1999) is born in the philosophical reflections after the Lisbon quake, and in part

as a consequence of it (Larsen 2006; Neiman 2002). In other words, society –for the first time in

history- sees itself as responsible for its own fate. The future depends on decisions to be made at

the present. This, certainly, signifies an important change in the way disasters are viewed. If the

present is a consequence of decisions made in the past and not God´s will, then who is taking the

decisions that made the disaster possible or even necessary?

The State´s Reaction in Portugal

On top of the philosophical debate, sociologists have remarked that what sets the Lisbon

earthquake apart from previous European disasters is also the reaction of the Portuguese state.

Staggeringly rich, Lisbon was also the center of a huge empire, but colonial operations in Brazil

were also being undercut by Jesuit control and British merchants (Dynes 2003). In this context,

the earthquake provided a serious threat to the continuity of the empire and its way of life. And

62

yet, the King collapsed in despair. In the mist of all the turmoil one figure emerged: Dom

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, soon to be Marquis of Pombal. The earthquake was the

defining moment in Pombal´s career (Maxwell 1995; Brooks 1994). The days after the disaster,

he amassed an enormous amount of prestige, assuming a prominent position in the relief effort

while the King cowered in a tent. Overruling the rest of the ministers, he became de facto

dictator of Portugal. His immediate policies focused on three areas, to dispose the dead in order

to avoid disease (which meant to disregard traditional burying rituals), to feed the population

(which including controlling prices and distribution), and to ensure public order (organizing

“district leaders”). But beyond emergency management, the earthquake allow him to become the

facto prime minister, and gave him both the excuse and the power to do what he longed to do: to

reform the Portuguese state (Brooks 1994; Kendrick 1956).

First, the situation provided the stimulus (and the pretext) to reform the economy. The burden

of reconstruction was shared by privates, the Church and the state, under close supervision by

Pombal. Merchants donated plenty of money to rebuild infrastructure, but they were still forced

to give 4 percent of their incomes on imports for reconstruction. Britons argued that they should

be excluded of this tax according to the 1654 treaty, but Pombal denied their request. Both the

donations and the tax were used by Pombal for a new policy of industrial development (Maxwell

1995; Pedreira 2005). From 1755 to 1769 fifteen new industries were established, including

sugar, ceramics, paper, textiles, cotton and linen. According to Pedreira (2005, quoted in Pereira

2006) “the afflictions caused by the earthquake of 1755, the fall in the inflows of Brazilian gold

and the general difficulties of the colonial commerce, combined to make approve a set of

measures that aimed for a reinforcement of the state, the increase of revenues and the reduction

of the unbalances of the trade balance.” Conclusively, historians and economists alike agree that

63

the earthquake did not signify a permanent loss for Portugese economy, on the contrary,

measures taken to revert the situation and the increase in demand for construction goods in the

years following left Portugal in a better position in the long run (Cardoso 2006; Pereira 2006).

A second set of policies was implemented by Pombal in order to reform the state´s

administration. The relief and recovery effort showed the need for a centralization of operations,

the economic reforms allowed reducing dependency on Britain dramatically (Cardoso 2006) and

for the state to improve control of the economy (Pereira 2006). Before the earthquake taxes were

collected by many institutions with many layers of bureaucracy –the Conselho Ultramarino, the

Junta do Tabaco and the Courts, among others (Pereira 2006). This allowed for inefficiency in

revenue collection and did to allow the Crown to have an accurate picture of all its revenues and

expenditures. The earthquake not only destroyed the main buildings of the treasury but also

struck the lethal blow to this disordered situation. On December of the same year, the statutes of

the Junta do Comercio were approved, the Royal Treasury was created and all royal finances

were centralized. The construction program was also carefully planned from the center, every

new building needed a permit, rent and wages were regulated (Jack 2005). Thus, while trying to

take control of the catastrophe the Portuguese state achieved an impressive degree of

centralization and power in quick speed.

Third, Pombal aimed to weaken the influence of the Catholic Church in Portuguese politics.

The fanatical preaching among the clergy announcing apocalyptical doom was increasingly

irritating for Pombal. According to historians, even the King fell into despair, convinced as he

was that God was punishing him (Maxwell 1995). And more importantly, the sermons were

preventing people to go back to Lisbon and people were focused on prayers instead of rescue and

renewal (Shrady 2008). Still, one third of Pombal´s orders where directed to reestablish the cult

64

and religious practices in the city, where only 5 out of 40 churches remained intact (Cardoso

2006). This is not explained by any religious fervor but by Pombal´s political vision, he might

not have been a faithful believer but he understood the power of the priests. However, acting

against the Jesuits was also part of Pombal´s agenda, and after a serious of intrigues, they were

expulsed from the kingdom of Portugal. The expulsion of the Jesuits also meant greater power

for the state; a great part of the education system was now in hands of the state, the Inquisition

surveillance powers were given to the police and the power to act as tribunal to public courts.

Lisbon´s impact on broader culture

It is difficult to believe that most people at the time were aware of this ‘philosophical

earthquake.’ In fact, it is up to discussion how much of the Enlightenment ideas permeated to the

population of Europe in general at the time (Chartier 1991; Brewer 2008; Caradonna 2012).21

And we know that superstitions thrived in Lisbon after the quake. Prophecies of further disasters

abounded in all European cities, and aftershocks helped to maintain these claims. Nonetheless,

the epistemological crisis was certainly not confined to intellectual circles. Voltaire’s poem on

Lisbon was incredible popular, it was published six times in French in three months (Araujo

2006). And other types of literary and artistic reactions abounded; sermons, drawings, theater

plays, engravings, flysheets and popular songs, to name a few (Nisee 1998; Bassnett 2006).

Really popular were witnesses’ accounts that were published in almost every European language.

In them, the sensational nature of the event was heightened by the fanciful style of the writers,

with highly emotional language (Murteira 2004; Araujo 2006; Bassnett 2006). Considering it

21

Chartier describes how Enlightenment thinkers contrasted their conception of the "public" with that of the “people”; "the opinion of men of letters" versus "the opinion of the multitude." Mona Ozouf goes beyond that and argues that public opinion was in fact defined in opposition to the opinion of the greater population, since ‘the public sphere’ was not really public by our standards, but a group of intellectuals that excluded women and lower classes. Even for Habermas, the ‘public sphere’ is described as a “reading public.”

65

all, it has been argued that the Lisbon Earthquake was very likely the first event to become major

international news (Murteira 2004; Araujo 2006).22

In terms of the impact in broader European culture, Neiman (2002) argues that impact of the

earthquake in both the goodness of God (providence) and the confidence of humanity in the

meaning of life (transcendence) was so profound that just the word Lisbon, was enough to recall

the deepest shook and horror. A shock that is only comparable to the effect of the holocaust

centuries afterwards (Neiman 2002).23

What was put into question was the broadly accepted

assumption that moral and natural evils are causally linked. Sermons by charismatic preachers

across the continent argued in favor of this link, with rival denominations having different

explanations for God’s providence. Jesuits argued that it was a penance for Portuguese alliance

to protestant Britain while Protestants saw the quake as a punishment for Catholic idolatry and

the continued existence of the Inquisition (Bassnett 2006). These sermons echoed the general

sensation of despair, the feeling of uncertainty and powerlessness that reign among European

people. But unlike catastrophes before Lisbon, this time this vision was thoroughly contested.

Not only had the enlightenment establishment opposed religion´s views through argumentation.

For lay people, the shock led them to question the intelligibility of the world as a whole (Neiman

2002). They were living in a world they simply could not understand. For example, something

that is repeated in several accounts of the Lisbon disaster is the fact that Churches suffered more

with the quake than bordellos. Reality did not fit their beliefs, their paradigms were crumping.

22

This is explained in part by the power of the message, but also by coinciding new developments in print media. “Event reports” were printed on thick paper, folded into small pamphlets and sold cheaply. To a large extent, Lisbon is such a great event in history because of this overlapping with print technology. And, at the same time, newspapers and the book industry flourished thanks to the dissemination of Lisbon accounts ( (Araujo 2006a) (2006b) (Murteira 2004) (Espejo-Cala 2005) (Cohen 2013)) 23

Something that Adorno (1973) had already suggested (Ray 2004).

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Overall, the earthquake in Portugal was certainly an “all-encompassing occurrence,”

sweeping across every aspect of social life (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999). In Portugal, the

tensions brought about by the earthquake shaped the state in a way that all the politics of

previous years did not. Social and political problems did not change with the event, on the

contrary, it was the same challenges as everyday life what came to light with greater clarity after

the shock. With the earthquake, they became even bigger problems and needed a bigger power to

manage them. After Lisbon the answer for these problems will be the state.

Interestingly, and according to disaster expert R. Dynes, this and not the intellectual

discussion caused by the “deepest shook and horror” is the primary lesson of Lisbon. Disaster

Sociology has followed Dynes line of thought for the most part. “While ideas always have

consequences, changes in the structure of society, from whatever source, are more essential for

change.” (Dynes 2005: 113). As the argument goes, it is the advancement of the state what

causes the cultural change on how we interpret earthquakes. In the words of Dynes: “the

argument will be made that changes in the social structure of Portugal and its modernization was

a more determinative factor in undermining the interpretation that earthquakes communicate

God´s wrath than the intellectual and theological arguments which have come to be characterized

as the Enlightenment” (Dynes 1997:3) This is because the states give us an alternative that is not

only a narrative, but also substantial. It offers us protection of other kind. However, as I will

show next, the Chilean case shows us that this is not always true. Even with no state intervention,

the intellectual discussion following such a catastrophic event had its own impact in Chilean

society.

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THE VALPARAÍSO EARTHQUAKE OF 1822, THE FIRST CHILEAN DISASTER

If the 1755 Lisbon disaster meant a change of paradigms to Europeans, it is the 1822

earthquake that meant the same to Chileans. In a way, the discussion that followed this event was

a continuation of the discussion of Lisbon, making it a good example of what Wagner-Pacifici

(2010) has dubbed the “restlessness” of events. Great events, claims the author, are continuously

transforming, taking on new meanings and traveling. This will not only affect the meaning of

new happenings, like the Valparaíso quake, but also add to the meaning of the original event, the

Lisbon case.

On the night of November 19, 1822, the officers of the Chilean Navy were making merry in

Valparaíso on a day off. Around 10.30 pm the earth shook. It started slow, giving a good

warning to Chileans who, unlike Europeans, live with earthquakes as constant companions. But

the second shock, soon after, was stronger than any Chilean alive could have felt before. In a few

seconds the city was reduced to a heap of ruins and screaming. At the shore, the ocean started to

retreat, then hitting the port with three consecutives tidal waves. And then came the fires, taking

whatever was left. Finally, when people thought nothing else could add to their wretchedness, an

unseasonable heavy rain came, and with it came cold, mud, and disease. The ruin was complete

(Graham 1824; Miers 1826; Vowell 1831; Miquel 1859; Cid 2012; Palacios 2015).

The quake is believed to have rated a magnitude of 8.5 Ms. and was felt in almost all of

Chilean territory at the time and even in Mendoza, Argentina (Lomnitz 2004).24

It was the

biggest shock in almost a century, and it completely destroyed the most important port in the

south pacific at the time (Ortega 1987). Nonetheless, casualties were fewer than what one could

24

Chilean territory at the time did not include the Atacama Desert or “un-pacified” Araucanía.

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image of such a large shock, although the exact number remains unknown. Out of roughly

15,000 inhabitants in Valparaíso the time (Silva and Vargas 2013), the number of casualties

reported varies from 150 (Miers 1826) to 700 (Adams 1835).3 However, eighteen century Chile

was still eminently a rural country, and destruction in the haciendas (states) was never accounted

for. As far as I have been able to gather based on different witnesses´ accounts, it is clear that the

countryside was even more heavily shocked. Almost complete destruction of houses and rural

infrastructure was reported in all surrounding areas of Valparaíso, including Quintero,

Casablanca, Quillota, Limache, Illapel and La Ligua (Adams 1835; Miers 1826; Graham 1824;

Vowell 1831; Bladh 1951; Montessus de Ballore 1912). According to William Bridges Adams,

who made the trip from Quintero to Valparaíso by horseback the morning of the 20th

, houses in

the countryside were on the ground and the nearer the shore “the more frequent the marks of

desolation” (Adams 1835). Because of this, no provisions were brought to Valparaíso for several

days, which caused great distress in the population and further economic loss (Vowell 1831;

Bladh 1951). In fact, in terms of infrastructure damage was almost complete in the city; no

church remained standing and some of the most symbolic buildings of the new nation, like the

Aduana and the Intendencia, were totally destroyed. Most private houses were also in the ground

(Thurn 1919). Valparaíso was entirely devastated; consequently, commerce in the port was

totally suspended for the better part of two months (Nile´s Weekly Register 1823). In Santiago,

chaos abounded and most public buildings were on the ground, but casualties were also low

(Gazata Ministerial December 2, 1822). Aftershocks continued for months, with at least 36 on

the first 24 hours. Wounded and homeless, people refused to leave the tents, or the ships, where

they now lived. All around central Chile, panic and disorder was adamant as aftershocks

continued for months. It was Chile´s own “Lisbon.”

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And yet, like in the case of Lisbon, the relevance of this earthquake cannot be fully explained

by the physical characteristics of it; we need to incorporate to the analysis the important

historical processes underneath. In this sense, the similarities between both events are strong,

even though one was sixty years after the other. But in Hispanic America, the threshold of

the nineteen century was a moment of dramatic political and cultural changes similar to

European enlightenment (Collier 1967; Cid 2012). Politically, the earthquake struck the new

republic of Chile when it was in the middle of a state building process. Unlike other Latin

American countries, anarchy did not reign in Chile after independence. Supreme Director

Bernardo O’Higgins was in charge since 1818, and had almost absolute power. Two days before

the quake, he had just proclaimed Chile´s Constitution. But the independence war continued in

the southern regions in the form of no-quarter warfare against the last royalist caudillos. Socially,

Chilean society still maintained the rigid structure of colonial America. A significant but small

European population gave Valparaíso a slightly less provincial air, but it was still rustic for

European standards (Collier 1967). Culturally, the country had been almost completely isolated

from the enlightenment trend; any opinion that was opposed to the official version of the Church

had to be exposed only in confidence (Silva and Vargas 2013; Jocelyn-Holt 2001).

Consequently, the Church possessed a “symbolic monopoly” of nature, being the only actor with

legitimacy to interpret its forces (Cid 2012). So the first big catastrophe after independence did

not only allow for scientific views to be discussed for the first time, but it also provided a

momentum for liberals to openly question the Church.

Intellectual discussions

Reactions to the disaster among Chileans were largely the same as in the colonial era: the Church

took over in interpreting the events as God´s wrath and organized processions and public

70

penitence to avoid further disasters (Graham 1824). Europeans in Chile were all very impressed

by the reaction of Chileans when confronted with the earthquake: ¡Misericordia, Misericordia!

(mercy!, mercy!), everyone seemed to cry at once, while falling upon their knees beating their

breast violently. Like at Lisbon, the faithful run into churches to find not shelter, but forgiveness

(Adams 1835). And after the emergency had passed, processions and penitence followed.

“Superstition has been busy during this calamitous period,” wrote English traveler Maria

Graham.25

Overall, there was so much catholic fervor that Protestants started to fear for their

safety (Graham 1824; Adams 1835; Bladh 1951). Of course, we know that the same happened

after the Lisbon earthquake, but that had been sixty seven years before. Europeans living in

Valparaíso had a fair notion of the seismic theories circulating in Europe at the time, and were

even familiar with the work of Humboldt in Latin America.4 On the contrary, they account that

even among Valparaíso´s elite there seems to have been little knowledge of these developments

(Graham 1824).

But this dreadful panorama does not mean there was not intellectual activity at all. In

Santiago, news and knowledge was distributed at the saloons and tertulias (social gatherings in

private houses) where ideas were discussed and books were read out-loud (Silva and Vargas

2013; Desramé 2008). Since independence, these “communities of readers” (Desramé 2008) had

become more enlightened. In these circles, interpretations of calamity followed a very similar

path than in Europe in 1755; the debate focused on the power of God over nature and whether He

expressed his ire trough destruction.

25 Maria Dundas, later Maria Graham, and after 1827, Lady Maria Callcott. But because she was Maria Graham when living in Chile she will be referred as such in this dissertation.

71

In the center of this debate was Camilo Henríquez, a retired priest and intellectual of

independence who was a supporter of the government. He tried to restore the spirits with articles

in his newspaper El Mercurio asking for stopping public displays of penitence “and other

medieval practices” (Henríquez 1822: 396). This inspired other intellectuals to publish similar

articles explaining that earthquakes’ causes were unknown but certainly natural. From this

article, it is implied that this discussion had started at the tertulias where some of this pamphlets

had been read as a speech. The ones that got printed are, probably, the tip of the iceberg. Of

course, these opinions earned these intellectuals a long time in purgatory according to Church

officials (Amunategui 1872). But especially to Herniquez and his friend Bernardo Vera y

Pintado, a poet as well as a philosopher, who in his most “Voltairesque” style expressed these

ideas ardently in many articles and pamphlets (Vera y Pintado 1822a, 1822b, 1823).

On the other side, priests were in the pulpits encouraging all kind of acts of penitence, and

people were listening. According to Graham, Chileans were walking the streets almost naked and

carrying enormous crucifixes (Grahman 1824). On top of this crusade was Father Tadeo Silva

who was, like Henríquez, a well-known patriot. But unlike Henríquez, he was also famous for

his pious personality and conservative views. He argued that the scriptures clearly claim that

earthquakes are the consequences of God´s will, either as a punishment for human sins or, in

occasions, as a warning to make amends (Silva 1822: 11). He was not a fan of bloody penitence

and fought some of the most horrible practices, but he was also very worried that if people

embraced “these new indulgent ideas” about the nature of the disaster,

“they will fall sleep in vice, and those who escaped danger will not think

to rectify their mistakes, under the impression that they are not related to

these horrible calamities” (Silva 1823a: 11).

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At first, Henríquez had praised Vera in an editorial of El Mercurio, claiming that

“his sermons choose to avoid further saddening and constriction

to the hearts, already cut into pieces by grief and terror”

(Henríquez 1822: 396).

By praising Silva´s call to stop violence, Henríquez probably thought to bring the more

conservative groups of Chilean population to his way of thinking. But if this was the plan, it

certainly backfired. Silva was not happy with Henríquez´s interpretation of his sermons,

especially because in the same issue of El Mercurio there was a speech by a philosopher “as

sensible as he is pious” arguing in favor of the natural causes of earthquakes; specifically

locating it in the internal caves of the earth. According to the newspaper, the speech had been

read among friends and because of its popularity it seemed good to have it publish. The author

was later known to be Bernardo Vera y Pintado.

To this manuscript, Silva answered with a pamphlet, arguing that earthquakes were certainly

the consequence of God´s will. Vera answered with all his poetic vigor, shockingly claiming that

Silva´s notion of a “cuckoo God” was used by the Church to maintain people subdue (Vera y

Pintado 1822b). His essay, also distributed in the form of a pamphlet, was not antireligious in its

nature, but strongly anticlerical. It argued along Rousseau and Kant that God gives freedom to

nature and does not use it to punish society. The inevitable consequence of this argument was

that there was no point in the processions and penitence organized by the Church. In line with

Rousseau and Kant before him, he argued that people should better

“take care of staying away from walls and rafters “and do not trust

that with blood we will make the Sun not burn, or the earth not

move” (Vera y Pintado 1823).

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He adds as a note that it is painful to see that “in this century” intellectuals in South America are

discussing this kind of issue, already solved by “more enlightened minds” in Europe. With these

strongly anticlerical comments the discussion got passionate. What was at stake was not only the

tension between the omnipotence and benevolence of God, but also the limits of tolerance in the

new Republic. “Where this discussions, recently prohibited, going to be permitted in the new

independent Chile?” asked the priests from their pulpits.

Camilo Henríquez used El Mercurio to fuel the nature hypothesis. In an extended essay he

expanded on the issue, quoting Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, and calling them “The

Apostles of the Intellect” (Henríquez 1823). Hernandez had read these authors while living in

Europe. And yet, he does not comment much about what exactly is the natural mechanism of

earthquakes. More likely, by quoting these authors he was trying to introduce a secular

foundation for truth, since so far the discussion had mostly used the Bible as proof for this or that

argument.

Here, the controversy had reached a boiling point and another response was quick to come.

Arguing that European philosophers were “The Apostles of the Devil,” Fray Tadeo Silva called

Camilo Henríquez’s religiosity into doubt, publishing a series of pamphlets that asked for the

ostracism of Henríquez (Silva 1823). He continued to preach that God was behind the

earthquake, and that it was only because of the prayers of the religious orders in the country that

another disaster had been avoided. If, instead, Chileans feel in the ideas of “The Apostles of the

Devil,” another disaster was sure coming. But Henríquez did not go down, on the contrary, he

wrote back, this time with the support of different personalities and intellectuals, with even some

Argentinean writers joining the discussion in his favor (Lafinur 1823). And thus, the discussion

was very much alive for more than a year (Amunategui 1938; Lafinur 1823).

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The State´s Reaction in Chile.

Unlike the philosophical aftershocks, there are significant differences between the Lisbon´s

disaster and the Chilean case in terms of the state´s response. For one side, it is true that in both

countries the state was struggling to accommodate to the challenges of modernity while the

Catholic Church still had an enormous power. And culturally, both countries were going through

a moment characterized by the emergence of new modern ways of interpreting the world,

challenging old answers given by traditional religious thinking. But still, by 1822 Chile was a

republic being created, while Portugal in 1755 was already an old country and a huge empire.

There is certainly a difference in state capacity. In Portugal, one man –Pombal- had a stronger

machinery to put into motion, even if this machinery was heavily out of date (for European

standards). In the case of Chile, O’Higgins had much less to work from. Because of this, and the

fact that he was seriously injured during the quake, his attempts to control the situation were

mediocre at best.

Also, O´Higgins barely survived the 1822 earthquake, having been miraculously dragged out

of Valparaíso´s Intendencia by his aide-de-camp. Even so, his injuries were the least of his

problems. The Supreme Director was a hero of the revolution; a soldier, not a politician. He was

a practical man who did not know how to run the country once it was free of war. He was also a

highly educated man, with progressive ideas (Collier 1967; Vicuña Mackenna 1860). He

believed in a strong government that focused on education, protected civil liberties and, over all,

allowed its citizens to be happy (Collier 1967). He was also a liberal, allowing Protestants to

settle in the country and energetically fighting the privileges of the aristocracy and the Catholic

Church. Overall, he had very similar goals as Pombal. But unlike Pombal, by the time of the

earthquake he had been in power for six years. He was tired, in constant tension with the

75

aristocracy, the Church and the provinces and facing criticism for the bad situation of public

finances and the fact that he insisted to maintain in his position an unpopular minister for the

treasury. In the words of historian Simon Collier, by 1822 the libertador was still much loved,

but his government was not (Collier 1967).

The crisis generated by the earthquake was just the last drop of discontent among the

population; people literally blame O´Higgins for it (Vicuña Mackenna 1860). Priests in different

parts of the country assured that it was his agnosticism and commitment to religious freedom

what had caused God’s rage. The idea of O’Higgins being guilty of the earthquake itself was

more important than his ability to manage the chaos afterwards. In this context, social unrest was

very difficult to separate from religious fervor. Political consequences were not framed in the

context of responsibility but that of guilt. O’Higgins was not held accountable because he was

found incompetent, but because he was believed a sinner. Chilean historian Vicuña Mackenna

was the first to highlight this point in a footnote of his 1860´s biography of O’Higgins, claiming

that “the catastrophe meant new political complications, not because of the disaster itself but

because the causes that superstition attribute to it” (Vicuña Mackenna 1860: 460). And the main

sin that was attributed to O´Higgins was his toleration policies with Protestants (Vicuña

Mackenna 1860; Barros Arana 1884; Bladh 1951). Now, the priests were putting the blame of

the earthquake in his door because of these reasons.

Unfortunately, neither he nor the Chilean state were strong enough to take over the challenge

of the earthquake. Still, O’Higgins organized the first emergency efforts from a tent in

Valparaíso´s hills. But he was injured, and in the middle of a political crisis, so he quickly moved

back to Santiago, leaving the chaos in the hands of Valparaíso´s Intendant. When O’Higgins

arrived to the capital, six days after the quake, he saw the processions and the show of the

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penitents on the streets. Under the pressure of the Church, the ministers had decreed a cessation

of any public amusements, claiming that “it is necessary that everyone that is not in the presence

of an obstacle to attend services and raise his plea to placate God´s wrath” (Gazeta Ministerial

Nov 27, 1822). Disappointed, he decided to forbid the worst displays of religious fervor, which

only fueled those who claimed his known agnosticism was to blame for the whole disaster

(Barros Arana 1884). Trying to take control of the situation, he decreed that a commission

should cadaster of the damage in each public building (Gazeta Ministerial Dec 2, 1822). And

then, he retired to his country house to recover. In the weeks that followed, the crisis only

augmented. The provinces organized to take over the government at Santiago, and in the capital

discontent was buoyant. By January 1823 O’Higgins abdicated to his position as Supreme

Director to avoid a civil war.

For the new government, led by Captain Ramon Freire from the southern region of

Concepcion, earthquake recovery was not an issue. In the next months there was nothing done,

except to comply with the resolution of the commission set by O´Higgins and issue an order to

demolish every unstable building that the cadaster had identify, even some private buildings. In

Valparaíso Governor Zenteno organized the cleaning of the streets and asked architect Alberto

Baeler de Albe to trace a new plane for the port. But six months after the event, British citizen

Mr. Proctor described: “When we arrived Valparaíso exhibited a most melancholy spectacle, in

consequence of the late earthquake (…) nearly all public buildings were a heap of ruins” (Proctor

1895: 107).

Valparaíso´s Impact on Broader Culture

It is not easy to grasp the lasting impact of the 1822 disaster and the intellectual discussion

that followed. Consequently, first we should question if the event was actually such a big event

77

at all. Following Sahlins, we have established that events will be different from regular

happenings because they prompt change. So the question to be asked is: what changed after the

1822 earthquake? Is it comparable with the Lisbon earthquake of 1755? Truth is, there is little

evidence of how much of this discussion reached outside the “circles of readers.” For instance,

Europeans in Valparaíso seemed to have been totally unaware of Hernandez´ writings (maybe

because of the language barrier). But we do know that Silva´s sermons were incredible well

attended, especially by women, as he is mentioned in letters at the time (Quiroz 1987). Since the

main aim of Silva´s speeches was to contradict the “apostles of the devil,” we could assume this

meant that their ideas had spread at least some.

Also, one important difference with the Lisbon case is that the European event happened at a

moment where journalism and the press were having a tremendous boost. And to a great extent,

Lisbon was such a great event because of this overlapping with print technology (Araujo 2006;

Murteira 2004). On the contrary, in Chile there were only two public prints in the whole country

by 1822 (Subercaseaux 2010). In this case the earthquake had an effect by developing the press

and printing materials. After a year of pamphlets two new permanent bulletins had been created

to defend these ideas; Liberals founded El Nuevo Corresponsal, and Silva created El Observador

Eclesiástico. Both were short lived bulletins, but they transformed into new ones that defended

the same ideas. They were not specifically about the nature of earthquakes, but more broadly,

they were created to discuss the role of the Church in the new republic. For this, the debate about

the earthquake was crucial since it centered strongly on the possibility of avoiding catastrophe by

penitence (or not). Therefore, the nature hypothesis not only put into question God´s power over

nature, but the power of the Church to command how to restore order after the events. This is

78

why liberals fought so hard to keep the discussion alive; in its center there was a negotiation the

borders of freedom of speech at the new republic.

And yet, the development of a true social science view as described by Neiman and Luhman

was slower than in Portugal. Disasters were increasingly seen as a natural phenomenon, but they

were still considered a force that was not manageable. The consequences of nature´s forces were

seen as something of manifest destiny or “fateful evolution” (devenir infausto), as historian

Rolando Mellafe has described Chilean history (Mellafe 1981). However, a risk perspective will

still emerge, only slower. An example of this is a letter, written by “a concerned citizen” to

newspaper El Mercurio in 1828, when a smaller quake hit the country again; if earthquakes have

natural and not divine origins, he asks: “what is the Government doing in respect to

earthquakes?” (Montessus de Ballore 1912). Then, by 1935, when another earthquake hit the city

of Concepción, public expressions of penitence and religious fervor shows a significant decline

(Palacios 2014 2015). Testimonies of this earthquake are significantly void of accounts of public

religious fervor. Of course, priests continued to argue for the hypothesis of the wrath of God, but

a greater number of people criticized this interpretation, and authorities were reluctant to

authorized public displays of penitence (Palacios 2014). In fact, a priest who became famous

preaching new disasters was denounced to the bishop by some churchgoers and he was ordered

to keep quiet. Also, at the time of the 1835 earthquake a more scientific view on earthquakes was

strongly established; for example, a committee of scientists was created by the state in order to

analyze why Concepción was the focus of so many earthquakes (Campos 1979). Hence, by the

next catastrophic earthquake a risk perspective was already being developed more fully. It is

clear that the enlightenment trend had keep going after the 1822 disaster boost, and largely

79

because of it. And at the end, the state had to consider catastrophes as its full responsibility, as

the reconstruction plan of Valparaíso in 1906 will show.

CONCLUSIONS

At the beginning of this dissertation I argued that catastrophes are true events because they

have the power to change the structure of society. In this chapter I showed two of the most

paradigmatic cases of this: the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Valparaíso earthquake of

1822. Both cases are of enormous relevance to understand cultural changes in their respective

societies. And both point out to the same processes: secularization and rationalization of cultures

that were highly religious and became less so because of the event. In the long term, this change

of paradigm will mean the development of a full social science view of disaster that sees them as

society-made. And, as the next chapters will show, this will also be accompanied with a full risk

management program that tries to control disaster damage as much as possible and that will

certainly reverberate in the state.

Taking this into account we can safely conclude that catastrophes have the power to change

society in ways that could not have been imagined before. It is true that the timing of the Lisbon

and Valparaíso quake is crucial to understand the discussion that followed, but changes cannot

be seen as a mere consequence of the Enlightenment. In both cases, it is not only that events

were interpreted according to a certain culture, but they were interpreted in light of a particular

conflict, and thus, they affected how this conflict moved on. In concrete, the earthquakes

provided an opportunity for the Enlightenment to expand, offering an alternative explanation to

catastrophe to that presented by the Church. What the cases show is that a previously gradual and

measured process of secularization explodes after something exceptional happens. The

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traditional paradigm is suddenly and irrevocably not enough to explain events. And even though

the Enlightenment is an unrepeatable moment in the history of the West, in the following

centuries catastrophes disrupted existing beliefs in similar ways. Religion is no longer a major

ideology but catastrophes are challenging our faith in development in similar ways (Dynes

2000).

However, these two cases present some differences, especially in terms of the role of the

state in reconstruction. Truthfully, both state leaders collapsed –the King and O´Higgins- but

Portugal´s disaster allowed for Pombal´s leadership to take form. However, it is not the argument

here that the true event was Pombal himself. I will argue that inasmuch as Pombal´s figure was

crucial, it is impossible to dismiss the power of the quake. Principally because Pombal´s position

before the earthquake was shaky at best (Brooks 1994; Maxwell 1995). If we observe the most

important laws introduced by him before and after November 1755, it is clear then that the most

important changes occurred after the quake. Even for Pombal, the main argument for these

politics was not nationalism or the enlightenment but the earthquake. He knew well that he

owned his momentum to the disaster, and was constantly afraid that laws should be passed fast,

before the flexibility of the population towards regulation would pass (Brooks 1994; Maxwell

1995; Dynes 2005). Also, with the earthquake some decisions could be made from scratch, path

dependence was broken and new opportunities roused. Conclusively, it is practically impossible

to separate Pombal from the earthquake since Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo became the

Great Marquess of Pombal because of it.

But the fact remains that the Portuguese state dealt much better than Chile after the

catastrophe. The sociology of disaster, in particular, has argued that it is this aspect of Lisbon

what marks the changes of mentality in Europe. In other words, authors have claimed that

81

changes in the conception of the meaning of the disaster occurred from the state-led emergency

response and not the other way around (Dynes 1997). But the Chilean case shows that even with

no state intervention there is, in fact, a change in mentality in the country. The interpretation that

God was behind the earthquake lost ground in Chile after 1822; and furthermore, the

advancement of liberal ideas reverberated on the state in the long term. Therefore, another

conclusion of this chapter is that ideas matter. As Blyth (2002) has shown in other contexts,

ideas matter especially in periods of crisis, because they determine the path that will be taken to

try to fix what has been wrong. “Agents must argue over, diagnose, proselytize and impose on

other their notion of what a crisis actually is before collective action to resolve the uncertainty

facing them can take any meaningful institutional form” (Blyth 2002: 9). In other words, because

ideas diagnose “what was wrong” they influence the way people thing “what is to be done.”

Therefore, in the topic at hand, the interpretation of the earthquake as product of the natural

forces is in itself relevant for the development of a modern management program on disaster.

The idea that the laws of nature explain earthquakes may not be as consoling as an all-powerful

God, but it can give people a different hope for control over nature. And certainly, it explains

how misfortune comes about (Luhmann 1993).

In the case of Chile, this was not the immediate reaction to the earthquake, but a process in

which the state had to deal with increasing demands on disaster response and risk management.

But, as I mentioned before, by 1835 the state did had another role in disaster management and by

1906 we will see a full reconstruction plan being led by the state. In the next chapters, I am going

to show how this process unfolds.

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Chapter 3 | POLITICAL AFTERSHOCKS

“Chile has an earth tremor on the average of once every two days and a

devastating earthquake every presidential term. The least apocalyptic of

geologists think of Chile not as a country of the mainland, but as a cornice of the

Andes in a misty sea, and believe that the whole of its national territory is

condemned to disappear in some future cataclysm. However, even with that

skepticism in the background, or maybe because of it, Chileans have achieved a

natural civilization, a political maturity and a high culture that constitute their

best exception.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1974) Chile, el Golpe y los Gringos. Editorial Latina

Shifts happen. Along fault lines, shifts happen every day. They happen with no rationality, no

agency and no political purpose. And yet, when a shift causes a catastrophic earthquake, the

aftershocks are deeply political. Disasters multiply social demands and overload political

systems, all the while disarticulating economies and revealing the administrative and moral

deficiencies of agencies and governments (Drury and Olson 1998). Because they are “all-

encompassing events” (Oliver-Smith and Hoffman 1999), sweeping across every aspect of social

life, catastrophes are moments when institutions and social arrangements are put to the test, and

efforts to “go back to normal” rarely mean exactly that. Instead, catastrophes present themselves

as an opportunity to design new political and institutional arrangements. In other words,

catastrophes are usually true events in the political realm, marking a before and after for many

political institutions and sometimes for whole institutional regimes.

In Chile, as Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez has poetically described, the earth

shifts devastatingly nearly every presidential term. Sometimes, the epicenter is far enough from

big urban centers that such President has a minor disaster to deal with, but often enough the earth

has leveled half the country. As I started to show in Chapter 2, these major catastrophes have

83

been pivotal moments for Chilean history; earthquakes have forced Chileans to be strong or to

face the risk of collapse. During the nineteenth century the incipient Chilean state was fortunate;

only two such events happened in major urban centers, the previously discussed destruction of

Valparaíso in 1822 and the ruin of Concepción in 1835. But twentieth century Chile was more

populated (the 1907 Census counted 3,249,279 habitants, three times more people than in 1835),

more urbanized (although 51 percent of Chileans still lived in the haciendas in 1907) and

economically more diverse (with strong mining and incipient industry). In this context, the

damage caused by earthquakes was supreme. But, as I will show in the next sections, the state

responses were also impressive, and were formative in helping it become what it is today.

In this chapter, I will deal with the political consequences of the three biggest catastrophes in

the history of Chile. The three cases analyzed are: the “Sad Night of 1906”, the “Big Earthquake

of 1939” and the “Cataclysm of 1960.” These are the only catastrophes in the country

comparable to the recent 2010 earthquake in Maule. In each of these instances the country was

reduced, literally, to rubble on the ground. For the analysis I will use various available sources,

but I will focus in particular on the proceedings of the Chilean National Congress and reports

from newspapers, both national and regional. While describing the events and their unfolding in

the political realm, I will focus in how these catastrophes where handled by the state and the

social consequences of the options chosen. As we will see next, all three cases are different, but

in all of them we can see that post disaster politics have been times of contestation, where the

state was forced to take action and decide important issues in a vacuum. Especially at the local

level, disasters have meant true critical junctures, a moment when change was not only discussed

but implemented. Overall, we will see that “going back to normal” never means exactly that.

Instead, a “new normal” is created.

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THEORIZING POST DISASTER POLITICS

For historians, the fact that catastrophes have important political consequences is well

known. Most of the cases of disaster studied by scholars in this area address this issue in some

way, shedding light on the topic of this dissertation. But unfortunately, political analysis has

been downplayed in the field of Disaster Studies to the point that some refuse to believe there

should be a politics of disasters at all (Pelling and Dill 2009). Disasters, the argument goes,

should be apolitical and rationally managed. Unfortunately, cases show that the opposite is true;

catastrophes are deeply political. Even if social solidarity arises in the emergency phase, in the

reconstruction phase the picture is one of overwhelming social conflict, and different social

actors competing for power. As a result, the political arena can be greatly shaken. One of the

reasons this happens is that catastrophes are contexts in which power relations can be more

clearly perceived, and when these relations are considered unjust or unreasonable it can lead to

confrontation.

Examples of how reconstruction processes may become an arena for contestation abound. In

Shaky Colonialism, historian Charles F. Walker shows how the aftermath of the 1746

earthquake-tsunami in Lima, the heart of Spain’s territories in South America, affected the

stability of the crown, as the lower classes were desperate and the upper class saw a chance to

press for independence. Similarly, Stuart McCook studied an earthquake in revolutionary

Venezuela (1812) that presented a disaster that generated so much political anxiety and

economic needs that royalists manage to win the state back from the libertadores (McCook

2009). The independent government already faced financial pressures before the disaster, and

then post-disaster was unable to provide relief to victims. On the same theme, the 1985

earthquake in Mexico City, one of the most studied cases, is widely signaled as a socioeconomic

85

and political turning point due to the subsequent social unrest that challenged decades of the

Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) de facto monopoly of the political arena. There is

discussion as to whether the earthquake triggered or simply accelerated these processes, but the

surprisingly limited capabilities of the PRI-state to deal with the event certainly opened the

political space for contestation (Olson and Gawronski 2003; Walker 2009). And even if not all

cases studied by historians show the same amount of political contestation, they still show that

the post-disaster period is usually a time when new political agendas and demands are generated

or strengthened, empowering some groups and debilitating others. For example, historian Mark

Healey (2011) demonstrates that the 1944 San Juan earthquake launched Juan Domingo Perón to

the national political scene, and John Barry (1998) presents a similar argument about the Great

Mississippi flood of 1927 and Herbert Hoover´s career. Not only people can acquire or lose

power due to catastrophe; Felix Germain (2011) has shown how churches have gained power in

post-catastrophe in Haiti and Jon Shefner (1999) has studied the case of environmental groups in

Mexico after the Guadalajara explosions. All of these cases show how catastrophes most

certainly call into question prevailing political and social consensus, and can lead to periods of

re-negotiation of institutional arrangements.

Furthermore, as this dissertation aims to show, some cases point out that disasters can be the

perfect excuse for the state to expand, become stronger or affirm its autonomy. One of the

paradigmatic cases is the previously mentioned Lisbon earthquake of 1755, where the

Portuguese state responded in a way that increased centralization of power and developed

important institutional capacities. More recently, Vivian Y. Choi has shown that the Sri Lanka

government actively used the tsunami threat to take control of the east coast of the island,

occupied by insurgents (Choi 2015). In a similar vein J. Kreutz has suggested that the Indian

86

Ocean tsunami in 2004 paved the way for the peace agreement that settled the separatist conflict

in Indonesian Aceh (Kreutz 2012). Kreutz also studied other cases and concluded that natural

disasters increase the likelihood that parties will initiate talks to agree to ceasefires, especially in

democracies with separatist movements because expectation for relief is more acute. He believes

that the mechanism for peacemaking is not a “sense of solidarity” but the need to redistribute

resources from war toward disaster relief (Kreutz 2012). And finally, a small number of studies

have sought to identify general trends in disaster politics. José M. Albala-Bertrand’s study may

truly be the only case. After analyzing the political consequences of disaster in developing

countries he concludes that a highly centralized response to disaster is more efficient and has

better levels of popular support than decentralized responses. Also, Albala-Bertrand concludes

that if pre-disaster conditions are fluid, a large disaster may be crucial for deciding which

direction the political regime will take. The research presented in this chapter supports this claim

(Albala-Bertrand 1993).

As I will show next, in Chile, the state changed after every major catastrophe during the

twentieth century. In these cases the issue at stake was never the winning of a war or the

definition of some military competition. In other words, in Chile the state has not gained power

by conquering competing groups, but rather by strengthening its institutional framework. As

Tilly has described, there are two major dimensions of state-building: one is centralization of

power at the national level, and the other is the development of new state capacities.

Centralization of power is essential to have a strong state, and only strong states win wars. But

also, he describes how bureaucracies that are crucial to the modern state were created for war-

preparation and war-making (Tilly 1990). These capacities allow a state to rule its population

and territory more effectively even when the threat of war is over. Similarly, in the next two

87

chapters I will show that catastrophes have had this effect in Chile, changing the course of

development and generating new state capacities. In this particular chapter, we will see that state-

society relations are initially reshaped by the disaster, and in the subsequent period the state

starts to have a new role in the country.

Disasters as Critical Junctures

What I will show in this chapter is that catastrophes are part of unfolding political histories,

and as such, they can become turning points in history. They are moments of contestation, where

meanings and arrangements can be permanently altered. As it was clear in Chapter 2,

catastrophes can certainly affect an entire culture, changing the paradigms by which a

community understands the world. In this chapter, I will show how this can also happen in the

political realm, where destruction forces the state to make significant decisions about how the

country must go on.

For scholarly use, this is referred to as a critical juncture. Following Capoccia and Kelemen

(2007), I understand a critical juncture to be a brief phase of institutional fluidity where there is a

substantially heightened probability that agents’ choices will affect outcomes (Capoccia and

Kelemen 2007: 348). In other words, it is a relatively short moment in history during which

change is not only possible but actually contemplated. The importance of critical junctures is that

the impact of choices made during these periods are more dramatic and important than in periods

of more stability because they generate self-enforcing path dependence processes; that is, they

place institutional arrangements on trajectories that are then difficult to alter (Pierson 2001: 114).

Critical junctures are a new starting point, a moment when trajectories are set and decisions

made by powerful political actors are potentially much more momentous (Capoccia and Kelemen

88

2007: 343). Contingency then, is crucial to define a critical juncture. By this I do not mean

randomness, but rather the realization that things can be different than what they are (in the

framework of what could have happened) (Mahoney 2000). One way to identify a situation as

highly contingent is by noting that many options have been opened up as possibilities. J.

Mahoney uses this approach when he defines critical junctures as “choice points when a

particular option is adopted among two or more alternatives” (Mahoney 2002). The possibilities

of what could have happened, then, are not infinite; they are determined by the conditions of the

critical juncture, but even then it is a moment when actors have choices. The whole historical

picture then, is one of long periods of institutional stability (path dependence) that are punctuated

occasionally by brief phases of institutional flux. In these phases, actors “can shape outcomes in

a more voluntaristic fashion than normal circumstances would permit” (Mahoney 2002). This is,

critical junctures highlight the importance of agency in history, something that is lost when we

study structure or path dependence mechanisms.

How do these junctures happen? According to Capoccia (2015) “an event or a series of

events, typically exogenous to the institution of interest, lead to a phase of political uncertainty in

which different options for radical institutional change are viable” (Capoccia 2015:6).26

Critical

junctures, then, are a notion very similar to events, even if they come from different traditions

(Political Science and Historical Sociology). Both refer to happenings that change society and set

it in a new direction. However, while an event is something that has been usually defined as

happening to whole cultures or societies, political junctures have normally been defined as

happening to institutions. Thus, what constitutes a critical juncture for one institution may not be

26

Of course, we know that catastrophes are not really external events, but rather are produced by the social and physical constructions that create vulnerability. But, for the sake of analysis, I will consider earthquakes as external shocks in this chapter.

89

critical for another. Also, while events such as the Bastille are not always defined by conscious

decisions, critical junctures are moments were people have to choose between different options

that are more clearly laid “on the table.” Finally, events are thought to be unique and

unrepeatable, while the same critical juncture can happen in two different places producing

distinct legacies (Collier and Collier 1991). That is why this notion may fit better for the issue of

this chapter: the changes in the state and the cities more affected. Nonetheless, the meaning of

events and critical junctures are strikingly similar and cannot be easily separated.

Taking all of this into account, we can consider the analysis of critical junctures as the

analysis of decisions made under great uncertainty. However, to fully explain a critical juncture

we should specify not only the decisions and actions that were taken, but we should reconstruct

the destabilizing effect (context), the decision making process (contestation), the options

available (not those hypothetically possible) and the identities of those making the decisions and

their interests (for the relative institution). Through this analysis, in the following sections I will

demonstrate that catastrophes in Chilean history have been crucial to set the path that the Chilean

state was going to take in the next historical period, specifically in terms of political economy. In

addition, I will argue that disasters have been true critical junctures for the cities most affected

by them. These are the two units of analysis that will be taken into account. I will show that in all

three cases, political and institutional options were greatly opened by the event, and for a certain

period of time, everything seemed possible: a more beautiful Valparaíso, a truly modern Chillán,

a safer Valdivia and even a whole different country.

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POLITICAL AFTERSHOCKS OF CHILEAN CATASTROPHES

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Church and the landowners had lost some of

their political power in Chile, and emerging middle and working classes were taking shape. In

this context, the political arena was eager for social change, with many actors pushing for a

growing, more subsidiary state (Collier and Sater 2004). As I will show next, earthquakes were

the perfect opportunity to effect such change. To top it off, twentieth century Chile was affected

by three of the biggest catastrophes in world history: the “Sad Night of 1906,” the “Big

Earthquake of 1939” and the “Cataclysm of 1960.” These three events will guide my argument in

this chapter.

The Sad Night of 1906

On the rainy night of August 16, 1906, an earthquake magnitude 7.6 (ML) shocked

Valparaíso, bringing Chile’s second largest city and most important port to ruins. The quake was

followed by a tsunami, several destructive fires, and an even stronger shock (8.6 ML) ten minutes

later.27

That sad night, people did not know where to run; they were trapped between falling

buildings, fires and angry water “converting the streets into rivers of people” (Rodríguez and

Cruzat 1906: 45). When the sun came up, rain was still falling and the earth was still shaking

constantly, strong enough to put the taste of fear in everyone’s mouth (Rodríguez and Cruzat

1906). People were gathered in the hills and the panorama to the coast was dreadful, there

seemed to be no building standing in what had been a promising city just the day before.

Because the country was much more urbanized and populated than it had been in the

nineteenth century, the damage caused by this earthquake was much larger. The event left the

27

Historical accounts disagree on the number of shocks, and the amount of time between them. In this paper, I follow Lomnitz´s (1970) (2004) historical survey of Chilean earthquakes.

91

impressive number of 3,800 (official) casualties, with more than 20,000 injured, and damage to

properties of more than 30 million English pounds of the time (Zegers 1906). The real number of

deaths was probably higher, particularly if we count those who died of diseases brought about by

the disaster.28

In Valparaíso what was not ruined by the earthquake had been destroyed by fire.

The city suffered almost total interruption of public services; drinking water, electric power, and

telegraphic lines were brought down (Rodríguez and Cruzat 1906). The plano (flat lands) had

suffered most of the damage, including the port, downtown and the neighborhood of El

Almendral, which were completely destroyed. In the rest of central Chile the situation was

similar, if less severe. Between La Serena to the north and Talca to the south the whole country

suffered with the quake. In Santiago, the capital, casualties reported were very low but some of

the most important political buildings suffered considerable damage, including the National

Congress and the Presidential Palace (La Lira 1906). Overall, it was certainly the biggest disaster

known to Chile up until that date.

The disruption caused by this earthquake was significant, and can only be comprehended if

we take into account the characteristics of the period. The Valparaíso disaster occurred in the

middle of a semi-parliamentary regime in Chile, only days before President Pedro Montt began

his term.29

The parliament was composed of only elite men, with strong family ties among them.

Alliances between the parties changed constantly, and for the most varied reasons. In this

context, the President named universal cabinets, with people from all the parties, which were

28

According to the data I have been able to gather, the National Civil Register registered 7,883 less deaths in 1907 than in 1906 (in 1905 there was in fact higher mortality than in 1906, but this was due to an epidemic of smallpox). The cause of death with the greatest increase is “other trauma” (3954 more cases, an increase of 367 percent), followed by diseases of the respiratory system (3710 more cases than in 1905). All of these maladies are linked to the destruction brought about by the earthquake (Oficina Central de Estadistica 1909). So, overall, more than 7,000 deaths can be linked to the earthquake. 29

The system was not completely parliamentary only because the President was elected by voters as opposed to the legislature.

92

intrinsically unstable (Cavarozzi 1978; Castedo 1999; Fernandez 2003; Gazmuri 2012).

However, stability was assured by a sound economy and a shared understanding of the role of

the state. The ideology that Chilean “aristocracy” shared was that of liberalism (laissez faire,

laissez passer); the state should only interfere in society when private entities could not cope

(Collier y Sater 1996; Fernandez 2003; Gazmuri 2012). Even so, though the Chilean state during

the parliamentary republic was tiny it was not weak, on the contrary, for the standard of the time

and particularly in comparison to the rest of Latin American states, the Chilean state was quite

competent in what it was supposed to do: maintain internal peace and be a bridge between

Chilean society and its source of money in the nitrate mines (Cavarozzi 1978). In fact, 56 percent

of the income of the Chilean state depended on the export tax of nitrates alone (Fernandez 2003).

This means that the state coopted half the surplus of the industry through taxes, making Chile a

rich, mostly solvent, country (Gazmuri 2012; Castedo 1999; Fernandez 2003). In this context,

the destruction of Valparaíso in 1906 was crucial, since that is where the commercial houses of

the companies that run the nitrate business were held, as well as where the men who carried out

the business lived (Elliot 1907; Pinto 1987). It was also the port where the export took place, and

therefore where the tax was collected. Taken together this meant that Valparaíso was, albeit

indirectly, Chile’s largest source of revenue. Thus, the destruction of Valparaíso was a strong test

for this minimal state: how to deal with the emergency when locals held most of the political

power? How to influence reconstruction? How to defend the state’s interest (if any)?

Newly elected President Montt had some ideas in these respects, all pointing to a central role

for the executive in the reconstruction process. Known for having a “strong hand”, he had been

elected a month before the earthquake to put some order into the increasingly questioned

parliamentary system. As head of the Partido Nacional (National Party), a center party supported

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by businessmen, he did not completely fit with the traditional landowner elite who defended

local interests. Hence, after Montt assumed the presidency he suffered strong opposition in

parliament. According to his biographer, this was due to the fact that he had been “cruelly

assaulted by a dangerous obsession for investing state money in all kind of public works”

(Ovalle 1918). As I will show presently, most of this public works “fever” was a consequence of

the earthquake. Valparaíso’s reconstruction plan was the first grand scale experiment in urban

development in Chile and Latin America (Paez 2008; Martland 2006). It was led by the state, and

completely transformed Valparaíso. Also, due to the earthquake, the rest of the country needed

new roads and railroads, telegraphic lines and police stations. The result of all of this work was

an increase in state power, especially in Valparaíso, where the state completely took over city

politics. In the following sections I will expand on these ideas further.

Taking over Valparaíso

The government in Santiago was concerned with its own damaged city when the news of the

destruction of Valparaíso arrived to the capital two days later (Rodríguez and Cruzat 1884).

Buildings were down –the note read- and most of the city was without running water (Rodríguez

and Cruzat 1906). Both the Ministro del Interior (Minister of State) and the Ministro de Guerra

(Minister of War), the two most important ministers in the cabinet, arrived to Valparaíso three

days later only to find that Mr. Larraín, the region´s Intendente (intendant, representative of the

government in the region), had everything under control. He had declared martial law and

ordered the distribution of food and drinking water. From an office in a tent in the main Plaza he

organized the distribution of resources, removal of corpses and the demolition of buildings with

risk of collapse (Rodríguez and Cruzat 1906). The intendant had also assigned Admiral Gómez -

Carreño to the task of maintaining order. Known later as “the sheriff of Valparaíso,” Gómez-

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Carreño was in charge of all police, army and navy forces in the city, including the municipal

police (Rodríguez and Cruzat 1906). Larraín and Gómez-Carreño were ruthless; according to

official records, fifteen people were executed for looting, their bodies left on exhibition for

people to fear (Rodríguez and Cruzat, 1884). As the days passed, the state’s authority only grew

stronger. Occupying a tent next to the Intendant in the Plaza, the Minister of State installed an

emergency telegraph and reestablished communications with Santiago; the Minister of War

declared a “state of siege” and took control of the military and police forces in the area and the

(incoming) President himself met with the neighbors to hear their complaints.30

In this context,

the Mayor, Mr. Enrique Bermudez, was relegated to minor tasks like the cleaning of the streets

and transportation of food (Sepulveda 2009). Most historians have declined to judge if the

techniques used were correct or not, but authorities did take control of Valparaíso rather

promptly and most historical records praise them for this (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) August 25,

1906; Rodríguez and Cruzat 1906). Moreover, in these congratulatory recounts, it was the

national authorities that were highlighted as saviors of the city and not local politicians.

This omission is very telling in the context of the parliamentary republic because since the

Ley de Comuna Autonoma, (Law of Autonomous Municipalities) of 1891, the central

government had little to say in local politics of the country.31

Under this law, it was the

municipality’s duty to collect internal taxes, organize security and manage elections. The

national government had veto power over some issues, but for the most part the city government

designed and decided what to do with no intervention of Congress or the presidency (Silva

1990). This situation was maintained until the end of the parliamentary period (1925). But the

30

Both President Riesco, in the last days of his term, and President Montt, soon to start his rule, went to Valparaíso to meet with the most important residents. 31

In Chile, a municipalidad is the government of a comuna, and comuna refers to the district not the community in itself. Thus municipality is a better translation than community for this law.

95

aftermath of the Valparaíso earthquake did made an impact on the balance of power in

Valparaíso, and set a precedent for the state regaining some power over city politics throughout

Chile. Not only did the state lead emergency management, but it also gained the right to decide

what to do with the city afterwards. As I have argued before, under the pressure of destruction

and calamity, a position of laissez faire is very difficult to maintain. Someone has to do

something or everyone’s future (and present) is in danger. And in Chile, from 1906 on this

someone would be the state. As I will show below, Valparaíso’s reconstruction plan was led by

the central government, setting the foundation for the development of Chile’s regulatory national

state in terms of city planning.

The Reconstruction Board

In the beginning, it seemed that things were business as usual. Two days after the quake, a

group of vecinos (elite neighbors) started to organize, help and plan for reconstruction (El

Mercurio (Valparaíso) Aug 23; Aug 26 1906). The (incoming) President Montt was invited to

this meeting when he arrived to Valparaíso, by the end of the week. At this gathering the

neighbors remarked that the state should deal with the broader national problem, but that they

expected to decide for themselves what to do in the city. As it had typically been for the past fifty

years, they believed that it was their prerogative to determine what the needs of the city were. As

resident Francisco Valdéz clearly expressed: “We wish to deal ourselves with this problem that

directly affects our interest and our own lives. We are perfectly capable of studying the issue and

presenting a bill that would save the city.” (CGV 1909: 141). Still, they knew the state was a

necessary ally to achieve this, particularly because they needed significant sums of money (CGV

1909: 120). As expressed in further meetings of this group, the General Committee of Neighbors

(Comision General de Vecinos or “CGV”) viewed Valparaíso’s destruction as an opportunity to

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design the city they dreamed of, following the ideas of the “beautiful city” movement (Paez

2009). They had always wanted a city of boulevards and “now, the supporters of wider streets

have much increased” –claimed newspaper El Mercurio- “including everyone who felt buildings

dangling over their heads” (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Sept 11, 1906). They truly wanted to

transform the city, so the proposition of the elite neighbors was radical; the government should

expropriate all the neighborhood of El Almendral (564,000 square meters) and the commission

would design a completely new area, with new avenues, streets and plazas (CGV 1909). Once

presented in the papers, the plan was wholeheartedly supported by most of the Valparaíso elite,

as editorials of El Mercurio show (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) August 25, 1906). However, their

desires where not going to be fulfilled as they hoped. First, the state had its own agenda with the

reconstruction of the fiscal port; and second, the property-owners of El Almendral opposed the

plan.

As I mentioned above, during the parliamentary republic, the state had no power in urban

planning in Valparaíso, but there was one exception: the port. The harbor was the state’s primary

source of revenue (import tax), consequently, during the period the state had a marked preference

for Valparaíso’s shore to be used by the port, which created some tension with the city (Booth

2002). This strain had been clear since at least 1861, when different projects had begun to be

discussed. In 1901, the government had hired Dutch engineer Jacob Krauss to lead a commission

to propose an extension of the port, but by August 1906 the project had been postponed and no

final decision had been made on the design (Cavieres 2011; Paez 2009). With the destruction of

the port and most of the city in 1906, the situation was no longer avoidable. Something had to be

done. One of the problems that the design of a new port had faced previously was that most

projects meant to reclaim terrain from the city in order to build a safer harbor; this was expensive

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and also against most neighbors’ wishes (Paez 2009). Now, the disaster had taken care of the

economic part: “the earthquake offers us some compensation at least. We are now in a position

to build a harbor with more ease, safety and economy.” (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Ago 31,

1906). The disaster had allowed people to start thinking about things from scratch, and all of the

possibilities were open, even to build the city following a completely different growth strategy

than before. For example, the Minister of War proposed a project to the government to discuss a

new inner harbor directly in El Almendral (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Sept 5, 1906). For the

central government, the port was a priority (Congreso Nacional de Chile, Sesiones

Extraordinarias 1906: 12). Valparaíso was doing its best to continue to function, and the Aduana

(customs house) was working again a few days after the disaster. But concerns about the

destruction of the fiscal crane were growing (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Nov 16, 1906; Oct 26,

1906; ZigZag Dic, 1906). This does not mean that the central government necessarily wanted an

inner harbor in El Almendral, but the rebuilding of the port was in the state’s best interest, and

some long-term solution had to be reached.

The government, then, created a new commission to evaluate the ideas for a new harbor

formed by engineers from Krauss’ team (Krauss himself was in Europe) and other government

officials. The truth was, the commission had been working since August 25th, the very same day

that the president arrived to Valparaíso to meet with the neighbors (decree 3,444 is from August

23th). Conclusively, reconstruction of the city center and the new port were being discussed in

parallel, with the CGV planning a new design for Valparaíso’s center while the engineers’

commission was discussing a new harbor in almost exactly the same spot (El Mercurio was

completely aware of this problem; in its November 30 edition they expanded on this issue in the

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article “La Reconstrucción y las Obras del Puerto”).32

The General Commission of Neighbors

was conscious of this, and expressly opposed an inner harbor (it was discussed at meetings on

both August 28th and Sept 1st), claiming “it was not convenient or desirable” to expand the port

towards the city (CGV 1906: 124). For them, the earthquake had changed things “but it had not

changed the need for wide avenues, streets and plazas in the plano. On the contrary, it has made

it clearer the need for them.” (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Sept 29, 1906). On their parts, the

engineers of the port commission thought that the interest of the neighbors in maintaining most

of the city´s flat lands for houses and commerce should not be taken into account and that the

natural development of Valparaíso’s residential spaces was to the north (Paez 2008).

In addition, the CGV and the Port’s commission were not the only groups the state had to

deal with in deciding what to do in Valparaíso. There was a third actor: the owners of the land in

the neighborhood of El Almendral. One would think that they were represented in the CGV, but

they were not. The CGV was composed of only elite neighbors, and most of them did not even

own land in that area. The landowners then also organized themselves. And they did not want to

receive money for their houses, not for a new El Almendral and not for an inner harbor; what

they wanted was to rebuild them in the same place. Millionaires, they argued, had property

elsewhere and saw their land in El Almendral as a playground. But for the owners of factories

and shops, El Almendral was home. Finally, a group of homeowners took their complaints to

Santiago. President Montt received them and heard their arguments; they directly asked him not

to expropriate El Almendral as the CGV desired (La Union, 1906; Sepulveda 2009). And the

President listened.

32

Some people, like Nicanor Marambio and Alejandro Bertrand seemed to have flirted with both groups. But for the most part, the work was being done in parallel.

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By October 1906 the government had decided on a new strategy. The President sent a law

for the reconstruction of Valparaíso to Congress, and asked for special sessions of the cameras in

order to discuss it (Law 1876). During the discussion of the law the CGV’s plan was debated at

length, but a plan presented by the Municipality and the one presented by the small owners of El

Almendral were also debated. Different opinions were presented, without a clear position by the

parties. For some, the reconstruction of El Almendral was no more than a charity project for

Valparaíso’s neighbors and money would be better spent repairing public buildings across the

country (Congreso Nacional de Chile, Sesiones Extraordinarias 1906). For others, to recover

Valparaíso was crucial for the recovery of the economy and the state should help as much as

possible (Congreso Nacional de Chile, Sesiones Extraordinarias 1906: 167). Finally, the law

contemplated the creation of a Junta de Reconstrucción (Reconstruction Board), with executive

powers, to be in charge of designing the new city plan and supervising the necessary public

works. The presidential mandate to the Board was to redesign the city center in order to make it

cleaner and more beautiful, as the CGV wanted. But for this, the President asked the Board to

maintain the old city map “as much as possible” (JR 1909, 10), following the wishes of the small

land owners. And even though the law did not include a reference to a new harbor per se, the

president explicitly addressed this issue in his letter to the Board and the message he sent to

Congress. It was imperative, he claimed, to “consider the increasing needs of import and export

commerce of the first port of the republic” (Ministerio del Interior Oct 12, 1906). So here we see

that by creating the Reconstruction Board, the state positioned itself as mediator between these

different groups, recovering some of the autonomy that it had lost during this period.

As Martland (2006; 2007) has pointed out before me, the Reconstruction Board had

unprecedented freedom of action and this meant an increased role of the state in city politics; it

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was “a creature for the central government, but its powers were still local.” (Martland 2007). It

was created by the central government and was in charge of several tasks that had previously

been in the hands of the city; large-scale public works, local regulations and zoning. It was

dominated by presidential appointees (all except the Mayor and the Intendant) and subject to

direct presidential approval. However, Martland misses several points. The fact that the Board

was “a creature of the central government” did not mean that the President had managed to do

everything exactly as he wished. By looking closely at the inner workings of the Board we see

that the president did not take over the city in one fell swoop. Certainly, the municipal

government was completely overruled by the Board. Not only the Valparaíso reconstruction law

(Law 1887) clearly stated that the Municipality was relegated as a consulting body, but also, the

municipal government was forced to share the cost of reconstruction, even with no say in it. And

from 1910 to 1917 this expense ate up most of the city’s revenue, and eventually, the central

government took control of tax collection in the city in order to be sure that the funds would be

available for this task (Martland 2007). At the Board, the proposal for the new city map by the

Director of Public Works of the Municipality, Abelardo Arriagada (La Union Oct 7, 1906), was

never even discussed. Also, the law established that the principles stated by the regulations for

the transformation of Valparaíso (active since 1876, by municipal decree) did not necessarily

apply to the new design. It was, on all fronts, the end of municipal power in the city center.

However, the elite neighbors (CGV) were not so easily cut out of the process as the

municipality. By looking at the minutes of the Board we see that its dynamics were very

particular. Certainly, the President appointed the participants, but he had appointed only two

engineers who were public servants (and from Santiago): Alejandro Bertrand, geographer from

the Commission of Frontiers, and Domingo Santa Maria, director of the national railroad system.

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The other members where three elite neighbors of Valparaíso who represented the three major

political parties of the country and who had participated in the CGV, Francisco Valdés Vergara

(Liberal, President of the CGV and arguably the most influential person in Valparaíso at the

time), Alejo Barrios (a National who had been suggested by Valdés) and Santiago Lyon Santa

Maria (Conservative, president of Chile’s major shipping company). However, this does not

mean that the Board was not an arm of the executive, only that it was a contested place,

particularly between the central state and the vecinos (elite neighbors).

This tension materialized in the fights for the design of the new city map. The neighbors

wanted carte blanche to design a new, more beautiful Valparaíso, but the state wanted to spend

the smallest amount of money possible, and to improve the port. Property owners wanted their

terrains back untouched. As the months went by, several city maps for reconstructing El

Almendral were proposed. The one that received the most support from Valparaíso’s elite was

the city map presented by the CGV, but there was also the Municipality’s new city map and the

property owner’s map. After discussing these plans, both in Congress and at the Board, the plan

that was approved was the final design by presidentially nominated engineer Bertrand (JR 1909,

16) (presented in El Mercurio, Jan 6, 1906). The new city map took into consideration most of

the presidential mandate. It maintained the old city map as much as possible, transforming it but

not creating a new one from scratch. Streets were wider and straighter, which would mean some

expropriations. But not all of El Almendral would be expropriated. The needs of the Public

Treasury were taken into account, since the plan was cheaper, and the desire of property owners

to maintain their terrains as much as possible was also heard. By January 18, the new city map

was approved by decree by President Montt. I will argue then that it was the new city map, more

than the creation of the Board, that shows that the state had increased its power in the city.

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Fuente: Paez 2009

Illustration 4: Different plans for Valparaíso´s plano.

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However, it must be pointed out that the state did not manage to expropriate part of El

Almendral to expand the port. This was a huge loss for the President and a win for the neighbors.

Overall, Chile was still an oligarchy, and the earthquake shows this in all its clarity. The fact that

most money spent on reconstruction was employed solely in El Almendral, leaving the problems

of the rest of the country behind, is proof enough of this. Still, a new permanent General

Commission of Ports was created to deal with the problem of Valparaíso’s harbor, and through

this new institution the state continued its fight for an expanded port, something that was

achieved in 1910 (more in Chapter 4).

Overall, Valparaíso’s reconstruction plan was an experiment in urban planning, one that

influenced further reconstruction plans through the rest of the century. From then on, it was

always the state that was pointed to as responsible for making things right after a catastrophe. It

shows that the path that had started in 1822 continued to develop, and that earthquakes were no

longer seen as providence, but rather something that was in the hands of society to manage. Still,

the law for the reconstruction of Valparaíso had absolutely no seismic provisions; it was not

about making Valparaíso safer, but instead more beautiful and more hygienic. This shows that a

risk perspective still had not emerged, even if attributions of responsibility had changed.

Class Conflict

A second issue I want to highlight in terms of the effects of this catastrophe on the state is

class conflict. As mentioned before, the parliamentary republic has been recorded in Chilean

history as a period of political stability. But parliament represented variation only among Chilean

elite, not among the broader Chilean population. And outside these boundaries, tension was

brewing. This is why for this earthquake I posit a different analysis than for the next two. For

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1939 and 1960 I will analyze the political debates and discussions about what to do with

reconstruction between different political parties. But in 1906 this is not only irrelevant but very

difficult to do, since parties and political alliances changed all the time and even governments

were in constant flux. The President filled his cabinets with people from all parties and they were

short lived (for example, after the earthquake President Montt had eleven different cabinets in

four years of government). Therefore, in order to approach the issue from the national level I will

expand on how the relationship between the political elite and “the people” was disturbed

because of the earthquake. Truthfully, the elite did not even consider the working classes as

anything more than a threat to social order, and this view was not changed by the quake. But for

the workers, the earthquake was an important moment of organization, solidarity and reflection

on the role of the state.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, emerging middle and working classes were taking

shape in Chile, and people were pushing for social change (Collier and Sater, 2004). This change

was directly related to the discussion of the role that the state should have in society and what

interests it should defend. Historians have not linked this process to the earthquake, but to the

changes in industrialization, urbanization and social movements that took hold after the 1900s.

Fernandez (2003) shows that by the end of the parliamentary period, different groups of the

population started to see the state as something different: something they could demand from,

and eventually use for their own benefit. He calls this a process “social statetization” (Fernandez

2003:145), and argues that it was the product of a “class consciousness” that socialists, worker’s

organizations, schools and intellectuals managed to create through education and indoctrination

(Fernandez 2003). I will not dispute that the work of socialists and incipient unions was crucial

for the development of a new relationship with the state. But, I will argue that even more

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important was the fact that middle classes, workers and poor Chileans started to come into direct

contact with the state, something that the hacienda system had not allowed. I will argue that the

earthquake was crucial in this process, because the issues of humanitarian help, labor and

housing connected the people to the state in new ways.

Sadly, very few historians have approached the earthquake from the point of view of the

working poor, even thought about the one third of Valparaíso lived crowded in conventillos

(slums) in the hills (Urbina 2011). One notable exception is historian J. Zavala (2012) who has

examined the “orders from the plaza” in detail, and shown that decisions as to who was executed

or lashed depended largely on their looks, which in all likelihood means that innocent people

were also shot. He also shows that orders to clean the streets and start to rebuild houses literally

meant forced labor; those who refused were taken to the plaza and Captain Gomez-Carreño

would decide on their punishment. Furthermore, “local authorities attempted to halt public

movement in the city by requiring workers to carry a paper with them that described the type of

work they were doing” (Zavala 2012: 50). This permit allowed “the plaza” to control their

movements and it shows how the state forcefully took control of the city and its citizens as much

as was possible.

Not surprisingly, this situation was troubling for the workers. According to the workers’

newspaper La Reforma,33

from Santiago, most associations of workers, artisans and other groups

reported to be “in complete ruin,” having lost many of their members. Working class

neighborhoods are described as “camps of misery and desolation” (La Reforma Aug 17, 1906).

33

La Reforma was the newspaper of the small Partido Democrata (Democrat party), which had been a scion from the Radical Party since 1887. The fundamental idea was to represent the workers, but eventually it became one more player in the parliamentary game. Still, by 1906 the Democrats included a number of future socialists as well as Luis Emilio Recabarren, founder of the Chilean Communist Party. He had been elected Diputado (deputy) in the 1906 election by the Democrats, but never took office because he refused to swear to serve God.

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And, more importantly for this dissertation, as the days pass we see in La Reforma a process of

class solidarity and one of incipient “social statization.” In terms of class solidarity, it is clear

that the earthquake was a boost for the organization of the proletariat in Santiago; they gathered

clothes, food, and helped each other. And this was organized by workers unions and feminist

groups that interpreted the events from a class conflict perspective (see: Zavala 2012). People

had gathered on the plazas and avenues to find shelter, and the police was sent to disperse them.

La Reforma complained that the police were once more the armed forces of the elite and of no

help to the people. This line of thinking led directly to the idea that the state should do something

to help workers in their dire situation. In fact, the directors of La Reforma met with the mayor of

Santiago in order to demand that the state put a stop to the repression of the workers and they

specifically asked to control the food prices in the city. After people start arriving from

Valparaíso to Santiago looking for shelter, writers in La Reforma criticized the lack of support

from state authorities for those in need and started to print the stories of forced labor that arrived

from the port (La Reforma Aug 26, 1906; Aug 29, 1906). This lead to articles strongly criticizing

the state and telling people that authority preferred to “squash and tyrannize” than do their duty.

Overall, we see that articles from La Reforma arguing that it was the state’s responsibility to

assist those in need and claim that the state should represent not only the elite but all citizens (La

Reforma, Aug 23, 1906).

The elite did not agree at all. They thought that the working class was actually the group least

harmed by the quake, primarily because they had less to lose and were more accustomed to

suffering (El Mercurio (Valparaíso) Sept 2, 1906; La Lira Chilena, Sept 1906). Second, because

wages had increased in Valparaíso for the lack of workers (El Mercurio (Santiago) Sept 1, 1906).

Workers housing was a real issue in recently urbanized Chile, and after the earthquake it became

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much worse. As a result, many workers left Valparaíso for Santiago or for the northern cities.

This generated a lack of workers in Valparaíso, with an increasing demand for reconstruction. As

a consequence, data shows that wages for construction workers in the city grew considerably,

which created a problem for finding workers for other industries (MOP 1907). According to

DeShazo (1983), who has studied Chilean labor movement in detail, the earthquake increased the

demand for workers in Valparaíso to the point that the city did not feel the effects of the 1907

(global) crisis, at least not in the employment rate (DeShazo 1983: 44). “Labor quite naturally

responded to this situation with demands for higher wages, and required labor unions to carry out

the strikes that were often necessary to achieve them” (DeShazo 1983: 98).

La Reforma answered these claims strongly with different articles, particularly because the

topic of how to distribute foreign aid was being discussed. One of the articles specifically asked

the workers if “would we always be marionettes?” The ire of the workers facing not only a lack

of response from the state to their pleas but also repression in the face of calamity reached a

boiling point at the Velada Funebre (mournful wake) organized by the Democrats to give a

posthumous tribute to the memory of the victims of the disaster (La Reforma Sept 9, 1906). For

the workers, the real disaster was the state’s reaction to their problems; not only providing no

help at all but also “tyrannizing” and forcing them to work with no pay converting them into

“slaves.” (La Reforma, Aug 26, 1906). Of course, this was the same state as that which existed

before the quake; a state without social policies or any subsidiary role. But it took the earthquake

to make this clear and to show them what their circumstances really were.

In summary, the effect of the earthquake on the lower strata of society was seldom recorded

by historians or mainstream newspapers at the time. But a closer look to sources available show

us first that these groups suffered greatly from the destruction, but also, paradoxically, that their

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position was also somehow improved. First, as Zavala (2012) has shown, the earthquake led to

increased working class solidarity, but also, as the elite was quick to figure out, the need for

workers to rebuild Valparaíso gave them a new source of power. As a consequence, the state

responded with the creation of the Bureau of Worker’s statistics, created as a direct response to

the changes brought about by the earthquake (MOP 1907). This small office is very significant

for the analysis because it shows that the state had made the determination to intervene in the

relationship between the patron and workers. The name suggests that the office was only in

charge of recording data related to the labor situation, but in reality it aspired to mediate between

capital and labor in order to improve the conditions of the working classes and maintain peace

for the patrones (MOP 2007; Mac-Clure 2012). I will expand on the creation of this office in the

next chapter. For now, it is enough to say that the creation of this office signaled that from the

point of view of the state (or at least some of its officers) as well, the role of the state in society

had to change. And for this, the earthquake was a crucial moment.

Summary of the 1906 Earthquake

The 1906 earthquake disrupted a period of relative economic and political stability in Chile,

the parliamentary (oligarchic) republic. The event affected Chile’s most important source of

revenue, Valparaíso, and these circumstances forced the state to intervene in the reconstruction

of the city despite the fact that this was against the laissez faire politics that characterized the

period. Furthermore, the state chose to intervene in a way that increased its power in the area by

creating a Reconstruction Board with enormous power subject only to the presidency, and

bypassing the municipality (and Parliament). Some authors have already pointed out that this

Board is a precedent of the development of Chile’s regulatory state (Martland 2006, 2007) but

the argument here is that the Board itself was a contested place, where elite neighbors still

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retained enormous power. On this Board, several new plans for the city were discussed, analyzed

and considered. Every one of these plans meant a great change for the city, and finally, it was the

plan of civil servant Bertrand that was chosen. This plan was a conciliatory map that took into

account the desires of the neighbors, the National Treasury and the property owners of the

Almendral. It is the map, I argue, that shows the depth of the state’s intervention in city politics

after the quake. This power was not supreme, but it was significant, particularly in the context of

the parliamentary republic and the law of autonomous municipalities. However, the new city

plan design by the Board did not consider the port, and this was the real interest of the state. The

earthquake, then, constitutes a window in on the workings of politics in the parliamentary

republic. And, at the same time, it is evidence of just how this structure was altered by the event.

The state set a precedent for intervention in local business, and it also made great strides in terms

of autonomy from the elites.

Taking all of this into account, it is not possible to claim that the earthquake per se was a

critical juncture for the state, even if it was fundamental to understanding relevant changes in the

future. Political alliances and the role of the state in society did not change in any significant

way. The only aspect that I have highlighted is how –outside of formal politics- the relationship

between workers and the state was influenced by the earthquake. With destruction, power

relations in the parliamentary republic became clearer, including their inequalities and injustices.

For the workers, the earthquake was a critical moment for strengthening ties and organizing

(maybe even a critical juncture for the worker’s movement). But, more importantly for the

objectives of this dissertation, it was a moment where criticisms of the role of the state in society

took more solid form. And this was an important development that will have significance for the

next historical period.

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At the city level it is much clearer how this event constituted a critical juncture. Destruction

forces communities to make important decisions, and some things could be started from scratch.

Valparaíso could be redesigned, modernized and made more beautiful thanks to the fact that the

earthquake had delivered almost a blank page on which to start anew. I will argue that this is

always the case for cities that suffer disasters of such magnitude. It is not that cities always

bounce back better, but that they never bounce back to be exactly the same as they were before.

At the city level, catastrophe means making decisions, whether we want to or not. I will expand

on this in the next cases.

Finally, it is important to note that by 1906 attributions of responsibility after catastrophe

have completely shifted from Providence to natural forces. Religious explanations have

disappeared from politics, even if they still remain in some private circles. A sign of this is the

creation of a National Seismological Center (which will be discussed in next chapter) and the

completion of several scientific studies to understand why Valparaíso’s center suffered so much

with the quake. What we see from reconstruction plans is how this view has reverberated in the

state, which is now seen as responsible for “returning to normal.” Decisions made after this event

clearly show how a risk perspective is starting to develop, even if prevention is not yet seen as

possible. By the next catastrophe, only thirty years later, this paradigm will be more fully

developed and demands on the state will be much greater than they were in 1906.

The Big Earthquake of 1939

After 1906, the Chilean state did not have to wait very long to be faced with a new challenge.

On January 1939, only a month after assuming office as Chile’s President, Pedro Aguirre-Cerda

was traveling through the night over destroyed roads to assess the destruction caused by yet

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another earthquake. All communications were down; telephone, telegraph and electricity services

were interrupted and roads and railways had been destroyed. What he found when he arrived to

Chillán was distressing; only 15 of Chillán’s 4,000 buildings were standing (Reyes 1984; Super

1975).34

The city was a pile of ruins, streets had disappeared, and death was everywhere. Chillán

was little more than “a huge urban tomb” (El Mercurio January 20, 1939). On the evening of

Tuesday, January 24, 1939, the 8.3 magnitude movement had been felt from Santiago to

Temuco. According to witnesses, it was as if the earth had stopped. No warning, no slowing

motions to prompt everyone to go outside. As a result, this earthquake caused the highest death

toll of any earthquake in Chilean history: 5,648 casualties (official, other sources claim numbers

as high as 20,000). This was due not only to the intensity of the shook, but also because

urbanization had grown in the country, from 49 percent in 1930 to 52 percent in 1949. With

bigger cities, the possibility of a major catastrophe had increased significantly. In fact,

throughout Chile, more than a dozen cities had suffered the same fate as Chillán and people had

been trapped in the falling buildings, sometimes in their sleep (Hoy, February 2, 1939). But

Chillán, capital of the Ñuble province, had suffered the most.

Once in Chillán, the President organized rescue efforts and the arrival of provisions. He put

the military in charge of public order, including burials, police, evacuations, and clean-up

operations. He also ordered the workers at state agencies such as the state railway and the state

airline to clean what was left of the city. Public services were provided in the main plaza and

people were sleeping outdoors. By order of the President, the military took control of the area for

months, even supervising who entered and who left the area. Families who could were allowed

to leave to other regions and injured people were sent to Santiago, but no one could go into the

34

Some accounts say 7, others say 30. Any number illustrates the point that Chillán was completely destroyed.

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area for weeks (Super 1975). And this was just the beginning. Within a few days, doctors in

makeshift hospitals were treating minor injuries in plazas, roads were being cleared and trains

were running again (Super 1975). Within three months, the President had managed to pass a law

that would not only look to recover of the areas most affected but that also changed the path of

the whole country’s economic and political system. If 1906 marked a critical juncture for

Valparaíso, then 1939 was certainly a moment of critical juncture for the whole country; it was a

point of inflection, where the state assumed a whole new role for looking after economic

development.

President Pedro Aguirre-Cerda was a left-wing politician, governing with the Frente Popular

(Popular Front, or FP), a moderate leftist coalition of the Radical, Democratic, Socialist and

Communist Party. “A diminutive, dark skinned son of rural middle class parents,” Aguirre-Cerda

had been a school teacher (Fernandez 1938). His victory marked the first time that exclusively

non-elitist groups had elected a President of Chile. And it had not been easy. In fact, by the time

of the quake some right-wing groups were still questioning the validity of his recently won

election (Super 1975). It had been luck, really, that had put him where he was. If not for the

massacre of some young “national socialists” a few months before the election, and the

subsequent support of this section of voters, Aguirre-Cerda would not have been elected. And

now, the earthquake would become his second stroke of luck because it would allow him to do

what he had campaigned to do: change the role of the Chilean state in society.

By the time of Aguirre-Cerda’s victory, the Chilean state was quite different than it was in

1906. A revolution in 1925 had reinstated a presidential system, and social initiatives in the areas

of housing, work, health and education were underway. But still, laissez faire was not officially

over. The Chilean state did not involve itself in industry, or economic development, beyond mild

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“welfarism.” Aguirre-Cerda wanted to change this (Aguirre- Cerda 1933; 1929); for him the

improvement of living conditions in the country was intimately tied to the development of

industry, and therefore he thought that this task should be a principal responsibility of the state.

In his presidential program, he gave a prominent place to his economic reform which would

create economic planning at the state level (Aguirre 1939b).

This idea had started to have some appeal even outside the more leftist circles. The Great

Depression had changed things for the country, and many people were realizing that they could

not live on the income from nitrates alone. According to a report of the League of Nations, Chile

was the country most affected by the Great Depression (Meller 1996); because Chile’s economy

was based on selling the products of mining, Chile had become overly dependent on external

factors. But by 1938 GDP had recovered to pre-crisis levels, although GDP per capita was still

low (Meller 1996). According to Chilean economist Patricio Meller, the Great Depression set the

stage for subsequent desertion of laissez-faire and the development strategy based only on the

exploitation of natural resources. Thus, Chile started with an import substitution industrialization

program before the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean´s (ECLAC)

recommendation to do so. But even if the Great Depression was the great instigator, authors

agree that the trigger for further change was certainly the earthquake (Sutil et al. 2001). Because

of the Great Depression, there was a certain consensus that national production should be

augmented, but there was certainly no agreement on how, or what the role of the state was going

to be in this process. The industrialization program that Aguirre-Cerda promoted was the answer

that had won the election, barely. But it took the earthquake for more people to realize that this

was the answer they were going to choose.

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The CORFO and Change in Political Development

When he returned to Santiago, President Aguirre-Cerda began his campaign for aid to

earthquake victims. But unlike prior disasters during this period, this time he was not going to

kindly ask for charitable donations from citizens. In his address to Congress after the quake,

Aguirre-Cerda was clear: “the government does not want to go to the devastated areas as a mere

moneylender” (Aguirre-Cerda 1939: 11). He took the opportunity provided by the disaster to put

into action his idea of how the Chilean state should operate, designing new institutions to

accompany an ambitious economic program. According to Aguirre-Cerda “the cataclysm has

confirmed to the government the lack of foresight in certain fundamental problems of public

interest” (Aguirre Cerda 1939:6). One month after the earthquake, the President proposed the

creation of a state agency in charge of the reconstruction to Congress, the Corporación de

Reconstrucción y Auxilio (Reconstruction and Assistantship Corporation, CRA), and another in

charge of industrial recovery, the Corporación de Produccion y Fomento (Production and

Development Corporation, CORFO). The President had a six-year plan and he asked for the

authority to collect and spend 2.5 billion pesos over and above regular national revenue; 1 billion

to reconstruction and relief, 1 billion to the project for economic development, and 0.5 billion to

new housing for urban workers. Part of this amount was to be derived from new and increased

taxes, part from loans (Aguirre-Cerda 1939).

The conservative right was “momentarily dumfounded” (Super 1975). What Aguirre was

proposing was a complete change from the way the country had been run so far. When they

recovered, the right presented no argument against the creation of the CRA, but they refused

CORFO, calling it “the most inept affront that one could commit against the economy of a

country” (Camara de Diputados, Sesiones Extraordinarias, March 10th

, 1939: 598). Even though

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CORFO was presented as part of the reconstruction program, the Finance Minister, Mr.

Wachholtz, was clear to point out that the objective was to promote economic development

through import substitution industrialization “because we cannot conceive of asking for loans if

we are not creating the means to pay them later” (Camara de Diputados, Sesiones

Extraordinarias, March 1, 1939: 587). The right argued that this was not related to the

earthquake, they knew perfectly well that Aguirre-Cerda had sought to transform the Chilean

state before the quake. Also, the sum was extravagant, nearly equaling the country’s entire

budget for one year (Super 1975). Besides, concluded the opposition’s argument, by requesting

funds for yet unspecified projects the President was asking Congress to give up its constitutional

authority to oversee government spending (El Diario Ilustrado, February 2, 1939; El Mercurio

February 4, 1939). And since the opposition had the majority in Congress, that should have been

the end of the discussion. But the government circumvented the opposition, arguing that to

stimulate economic recovery it was necessary to make the loans requested for reconstruction, and

that the United States favored the plan to guarantee these loans (Super 1975). Minister

Wachholtz also conferred privately with senators and deputies, but the finance committee

rejected his bill.

Thus, Aguirre-Cerda sought the help he needed in his voters. He organized a second tour in

the earthquake-torn provinces, pleading for popular support for his bill. “I have promised” –he

said while on route- “not just to bury your dead, not just to help the wounded, but also to

immediately deal with the reconstruction of the destroyed cities, to revive life and labor, to save

agriculture and industry.” (La Nación January 31, 1939). Also, the Aguirre-Cerda administration

started a huge campaign to paint the conservatives as responsible for all of the delay in solutions

to the earthquake problems. “The people” – argued a loyal deputy- “had already approved these

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measures in a democratic election, when they elected their leader” (Camara de Diputados,

Sesiones Extraordinarias 1939:723). Large crowds would gather at each train stop to hear

Aguirre-Cerda talk and berate right-wing politicians for prolonging their miseries (Super 1975).

In the press, the message was echoed. “Of all the countries in the world” –claimed a cartoon-

“Chile is the only one that has not helped Chile” (TOPAZE 1939). All the while, in Santiago, the

Conservative Party published a “manifesto” against the bill, vowing to deny the President such

powers and accusing him of playing with the future of the country for political purposes (El

Mercurio Feb 4, 1939). Then, they proposed a new bill that contemplated only the emergency

money and the creation of the CRA, to rebuild the most affected areas. It was a project that not

only cost one third of the money required to fund the original proposal, but that also maintained

economic development as it was, independent of the state’s actions (El Diario Ilustrado Feb 15,

1939, La Nación Feb 15, 1939). Socialist and Communist representatives, not so happy with

Aguirre-Cerda’s bill, also presented a project. Socialists were not happy with the increase of

sales tax in the bill, and instead supported higher taxes on industrialists. When their bill was

presented to Congress, there were already seven different proposals submitted by different

groups of representatives being discussed (La Nación February 20, 1939). This was a true

political juncture for the country; new routes were being considered, and the possibilities were

wide open.

Aguirre-Cerda was not going to go down and lose his opportunity. “We need 2.5 billion

pesos, and we will have them” he told the newspaper, La Nación (Feb 7, 1939). So Aguirre-

Cerda went on yet another tour of the devastated area to plead for popular approval for his bill.

In his speeches he claimed, “I am not a revolutionary in the sense that most people use the

expression, of producing violent transformations; but yes, I am a revolutionary when I try to

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change old conceptions or practices that do not respond to the justice that should reign in

democracy” (Aguirre-Cerda 1940:4).

Meanwhile, in Santiago, Minister Wachholtz used his constitutional authority to retire all

projects from discussion (including his own). And then, he submitted a new bill, with some

concessions to the right-wing point of view. Under the new arrangement the state did not have

direct control over any of the agencies, instead they would be created as corporations with a

boards of directors that included the heads of some industrial organizations. Still, they would be

state-led and the state would hold 100 percent of the shares. This addressed one of the most

important fears of the right; that Aguirre-Cerda was going to use CORFO as a political tool for

the Popular Front (Super 1975). Also, some proposed tax increases were scaled back;

specifically a 10 percent tax on homemade manufactured goods was cut out of the project. Also,

Aguirre-Cerda managed to assuage socialists by promising offices in the new corporations

(Super 1975). But it was not enough; they needed at least some right-wing votes to approve the

project. On the other side, the right was making sure the bill was never going to see the light of

day; they approved it in the Finance Committee in order to make sure that the executive could

not retire it as it had done with the former bills. What followed was a massive, sometimes

violent, fight between the Popular Front supporters and conservative supporters. In the chamber,

they passed the majority of the reconstruction articles and then defeated all those related to the

development corporation. More than once, the discussion grew so heated that debaters had to be

pulled apart before a brawl broke out on the chamber floor (Super 1975). As a deputy of the

opposition put it: “the tragedy has put to the test not only our economic capacity but also our

aptitudes for democratic life” (Camara de Diputados, Sesiones Extraordinarias 1940: 686).

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Finally, when it was time for the deputy chamber to vote on the government bill it was

approved by the vote of opposition deputy Armando Martin, representing the district of Chillán

(La Nación March 9, 1939). This meant that Aguirre-Cerda’s best strategy had been to travel to

the disaster area and convince people that whoever was against it was not with them. Thus, he

used the same strategy for the approval of the bill in the Senate chamber. While the bill went

back and forth between the senate and the chamber of deputies, he organized massive rallies in

Santiago and addressed the multitudes repeating the same speech: economic expansion was vital

for the reconstruction program and any hopes of economic self-sufficiency. But the fight in the

Senate left it clear that the right was not going to relent. The Finance commission of the Senate

also criticized the “mixing” of reconstruction and development of the economy in one project,

calling it a “vice” (Senado, Sesiones Extraordinarias 1940: 413). In the end, they managed to

deny the President his four special appointees on CORFO’ s board of directors, and added a

clause that specified that legislative consent was required for any of CORFO’s expansion

projects (Super 1975). But finally, not without a fight from Aguirre-Cerda who tried to veto the

changes, CORFO was approved with these new dispositions. The crucial votes were, once again,

made by the Senators who represented the most affected area.35

Over the years, CORFO has been crucial in the development of the Chilean economy. The

corporation would adhere to “a middle road between laissez-faire attitudes and state socialism”

(Super 1975: 186), acting as financier and entrepreneur, but also researcher, advisor and provider

of basic services (more in Chapter 4). Most of these achievements will occur after the Front’s

years in power. During Aguirre-Cerda’s presidency, reconstruction and recovery understandably

monopolized CORFO’s work. To achieve this, it started with several “immediate action plans” in

35

Francisco Urrejola and Rafael Luis Gumucio. Senators for Ñuble, Concepción and Arauco.

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a number of areas, including the electrification of the country.36

A new path forward had been

set, one which focused on the national planning and coordination of investment as vital to

consistent economic growth as well as establishing the right of the state to be a part of financial

ventures (Bulnes 1943). Economists, political scientists and historians agree that CORFO

represented a true paradigmatic change for Chile, a critical juncture in which the path of the

whole political system was set anew.

A Rational Reconstruction of Chillán

Another area where we see radical changes resulting from the 1939 earthquake is at the local

level. Before 1939, Chillán was a classical Chilean city, with a decidedly provincial air. It was

more like a big town than a city, with farms inside the city center and public transport by animal

draught (Cerda 2010). Its architecture was a mix of neoclassical and colonial, with traditional

one-floor terraced houses (continuous façade). Sadly, 97 percent of these houses and buildings

were destroyed by the earthquake, according to official reports (Torrent 2013). For Chillán, this

became a true critical juncture, because with almost all of its buildings on the ground there was

no other option than to start all over again. And also because, almost immediately, there was a

certain consensus that the new Chillán had to be built differently than the old, in a more

“modern” and “rational” fashion that followed the principles of modern architecture. Modernism

will take different forms in different places, but generally it refers to a type of architecture that

reconciles the principles of architectural design with the rationality of the technological

advancement of twentieth century. The deeper issue is that modern architecture is not just about

the aesthetics of buildings; it is a way of thinking about the whole city. Modernism means that

rationality is sought after in every endeavor, and that scientific logic should prevail even on the

36

Other immediate plans included mining, industry, combustibles, agriculture and transportation.

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most minimal issue. This is also intimately linked to planning, zoning and the use of space.

Therefore this type of architecture and these ideas were, in Chile, not only driven by architects

and engineers but also actively developed by the state. The events that prompted this

development were the 1828 earthquake in Talca and the 1939 Chillán catastrophe (Aguirre 2004;

Torrent 2013). After these earthquakes, the state organized reconstruction guided by the

principles of Modernism.

Where the reconstruction of Chillán is concerned, the advancement of modern architecture is

important because it completely frames the discussion about what to do with the city. The idea

that is repeated the most in the debates is not how to have a beautiful city, as was the case in

1906, but rather a “functional” and “rational” city. This meant that the first discussion was not

how to re-design Chillán but whether it was worth it to do so. For Luis Muñoz Maluschka, from

the Chilean Ministry of Public Works, “urgencies need centralized action” (Pavez 2002). He

thought that only urban centers with the possibility of surviving should receive direct help, and

that the rest should have their population directed to other places (Pavez 2002). Others, like

Carlos Charlin, an architect and known defender of modernism, argued, “it is necessary to build

and organize urban centers that disappeared, but in a whole new way” (ZigZag 1939). What

arose thereafter was an avalanche of plans for the new Chillán. Every magazine and newspaper

in the country published at least one map of what should be done with the city (and/or other

cities, like Concepción). The first of these maps appeared on February 6th, barely a month after

the earthquake, and before anyone had officially requested one (La Hora, Feb 6, 1939). The plan

proposed bigger avenues that crossed the city in diagonals, challenging the traditional square city

map that Chileans cities had since the colonial times. This shows, first, that architects in Chile

were eager for the opportunity to re-design a whole new city, and second, that architects did not

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have to think much about what benefited Chillán, or even what the aspirations or desires of the

people of Chillán were. Despite this omission they believed they knew, from theory, what would

be best for the city. And they practically had a tabula rasa to design it. By March 16, there were

at least four projects to reconstruct Chillán that gained some attention, and another four for

Concepción (ZigZag, March 16, 1939). On top of that, in Santiago a group of architects had

contacted famous French architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris) to design

new city maps for Chillán and Concepción. The story in the press was the following: Le

Corbusier offers to design new city maps for free. In truth, he had been asked in 1938 if he was

available to do the zoning city map of Santiago. This was under negotiation, apparently, when

disaster struck and “Le Corbusists” saw a new opportunity for their idol to do more. And it was

never a free offering, but rather one dependent on the fees arranged for the work in Santiago

(Bannen et al. 2003). On the other side were the national architects who saw themselves as the

appropriate people for the task. They were all modernists, but they believed that Le Corbusier

was too theoretical and followed the teachings of other modernists, particularly Austrian Karl

Brunner, who had defined the new zoning city map for Santiago. Among them was the President

of the Urbanism Institute Rodolfo Oyarzún, who refused the request to bring Le Corbusier to

Chile because he considered it an affront to the work that the state had done so far in urban

planning, which followed the German school (Carvajal 2011).

Also, the 1939 earthquake prompted the organization of a number of associations with

interests in reconstructing the city. The Institute of Urbanism was in the press offering assistance

with measuring the damage, reconstructing and designing maps to the President the very next

day after the tragedy (La Nación, Jan 26, 1939). The Architects’ Association (Colegio de

Arquitectos), also proposed an emergency plan to control the prices of materials, reconstruct

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emergency houses and, also, design a city-zoning map for Chillán (El Mercurio, Jan 31, 1939).

The Mayors of the Ñuble Province, who were concerned about all of these opinions from

Santiago “which have provoked true alarm in the people, because they do not consider the reality

of the future city” (Frente Popular March 21, 1939), formed a coalition to represent their

interests. And finally, the Association of Owners of Chillán was formed on May 9th to make sure

that the new Chillán did not destroy their property rights. Thus, the discussion of the city map

was a game of power. Who was going to decide what to do with Chillán?

According to the arrangements of the new law, the recently created CRA was the

organization in charge of reconstruction; this meant it would provide loans for repairs, build

houses to be sold cheap, build emergency buildings for public offices and reconstruct public

works in general. According to the reports from the government, during the first year after the

quake the corporation completed the first part of this task, completing the emergency buildings

for state offices and making loans to people who needed them (Aguirre-Cerda 1940). This is to

say that while all of the discussion was taking place, the state was doing its own planning. At the

CRA, modernism was also the major issue. If for architects modernism meant an opportunity to

build a whole city from scratch, for the state it meant cheaper, faster and safer houses.

Reconstruction then, ends up in the hands of a group of young architects hired by the Ministry of

Public Works and led by the aforementioned Muñoz Maluschka, with a commission formed by

the president of the Institute of Urbanism, the president of the National Architects’ Association,

and the president of the National Engineers’ Association to serve as a consulting body. In the

end, modern architecture would lead the reconstruction of Chillán, but not in the hands of

renowned architects, foreign or nationals, but instead by their disciples (some of them in the

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process of receiving their degrees) that worked for the Chilean state. In their views, the main

issue was not architectural styles but urban planning.

The area where reconstruction efforts and the discussion surrounding the new city map were

concentrated was Chillán’s downtown, a square of around twelve blocks, with four big avenues

surrounding it (Cerda 2010). Owners in the area were impatient; they needed to know what the

new edification lines and streets would be in order to start rebuilding their homes and businesses

(La Discusión, April 1, 1939). And the problem would not be easily solved. The state presented

two different city-zoning maps for this area in 1939, and both were rejected by the community.

First, the new city map proposed the creation of new diagonal avenues, streets and parks and,

overall, a whole new city. The second project maintained the blocks but widened some streets

and contemplated a major monumental boulevard from the train station to the main square. But

this city map did not happen either. What the architects were worried about was convincing the

people of Chillán that modernism was better than old neoclassic and colonial structures. And in

this they succeeded. But they could not convince them to give up their property rights in order to

see these new avenues and plazas in the city. In fact, according to the Chillán newspaper La

Discusión, the first time that Muñoz Maluska addressed the city council and the neighbors, in

April 1939, he had no answers to the issue of expropriations of land and eminent domain. Would

the state pay? How would the price be determined? (La Discusión April 13th

, 1939). Specifically,

the plans were rejected by the Association of Owners of Chillán. In colorful articles neighbors

would express their wishes to maintain the original city map (La Discusión March 31, 1939),

highlighting the right of owners to have a say in the future of their properties and calling

architects “dreamers and poets with ideas outside of all reality” (La Discusión March 31, 1939).

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In fact, most of the architects and urban planners that had proposed new city maps for the

city had not even been in Chillán since the earthquake (Hidalgo 2011). Public servants in the

area tried to calm down the issue by explaining the advantages of the new plan, and asking for

faith in the knowledge of the people that were in charge of the new Chillán (La Discusión, May

7, 1939). But the owners would not relent, and started to lobby to make their point: property

rights should be respected (La Discusión Mayo 14, 1939). Many complained that the city map

was “Prussian”, in other words, authoritarian from the central government (La Discusión Jun 14,

1939).

Illustration 5: Different plans for Chillán

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Once more, like in 1906, the state was forced to mediate between the interests of different

groups in reconstruction, and once more property won some battles over ingenuity. The second

city map presented by Muñoz Maluschka relented on most issues but it still meant some serious

expropriations. In his view, Muñoz Maluschka believed that people should accept that their city

was dead and contemplate its future together, leaving aside “mean individual interests” (La

Discusión, May 19). For him, sentimentalisms like “the love for the land, the little house, the

growing tree” should not be taken into account by a rational state (Pavez 1993). Still, this second

time, Muñoz Maluschka got a better response from the population (La Discusión, 19 May 1939).

But in the end the great quantity of expropriations proved to be a dead end. The Municipality,

which had been completely cut out of the process of designing the city maps but still had to

approve them, sided with the neighbors, that is, the owners of land in downtown Chillán.

The city map that went through was the third one designed by Luis Muñoz Maluschka,

whose major characteristic was to maintain most of the original plan, with its streets and plazas

and parks, with only minor arrangements. Slowly, most streets were marked again where they

were, just as plazas and the avenues in the perimeter. Nevertheless, the new plan was indeed

modern and contemplated a complete planning of a new Chillán. Buildings were now built under

the rules of modernism, with construction codes, resistance measurements and safety controls.

They were now made of reinforced concrete, without romanticism, decorations or stylish

facades, they were pure geometry, pure functional rationality. Furthermore, zoning was a reality

and activities were restricted to areas of the city; a new “Barrio Administrativo” surrounding the

main plaza, a commercial area, with continuous façade of two or three floors, and a residential

area, in the rest of the urban area (Torrent 2014). This zoning of the activities that took place in

urban space was crucial in the view that Munoz Malushka had impulse from the part of the state

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(Pavez 1993); it involved detailed descriptions of neighborhoods and the types of activities that

should be developed in each one.


The 1939 earthquake happened at a moment in Chilean history when considerable people

were impatient for the state to take a more active role in the economy. These ideas had allowed

Pedro Aguirre-Cerda to become President, but he had barely won the election and was in a bad

position to fulfill his dream when disaster struck. After the quake, political equilibriums shifted.

As a consequence, he managed to gain the votes of conservative senators in the most affected

areas in order to create two new state corporations: CORFO and CRA. These organizations

signified a complete change of route for the Chilean state; its new role was to function as the

primary industrialist in the country. For this reason, I consider the 1939 earthquake a true

political juncture for the Chilean state. After all, a new state emerged, establishing a new

relationship with society. In the next period of Chilean history, the state will lead

industrialization in the country and will attempt to have a role in economic planning, something

the country had never seen before. It is true that this had been the intent of President Aguirre-

Cerda since before the earthquake; but it is also true that it was made possible by of the window

of fluidity that the earthquake unlocked. New options were opened, discussed and exercised.

Also, at the city level, we see again that destruction opened up opportunities for Chillán to

renew itself. In this case the goal was to build a more “rational” Chillán, but there is a clear

parallel with the case of Valparaíso: debris demands that decisions be made. And these decisions

have not been, in any of the cases discussed here, to rebuild the city exactly the way it was

before. Several plans were considered, even the abandonment of Chillán for a new location.

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Finally, it was the zoning plan developed by the Minister of Public Works that was decreed to

govern the city’s redevelopment. But, as in the case of Valparaíso in 1906, this was not managed

in one fell swoop. On the contrary, it was the result of much negotiation and debate between the

state and the neighbors and property owners of Chillán. For these reasons, I argue that at the

local level catastrophe always mean a critical juncture, a moment of contestation where new

possibilities are open and change finds the space to take hold.

Also, we see that –as in 1906- the state has a prominent role in deciding what is to be done in

the city. We can see this yet again when analyzing the final city map that was followed in

Chillán; its main features were decided by the central Office of Public Works. Still, it is also true

that the state (led by Muñoz- Maluschka) could not do exactly as it pleased. The catastrophe was

a moment of negotiation, even contestation, where the state had to communicate with society

more acutely than it did in normal times. But overall, we have seen once again that the state finds

a place to expand its power in the local sphere after catastrophe.

Finally, in terms of a risk perspective, we see that the state is not only considered responsible

for reconstruction but also for taking preventive measures to avoid further disasters. This is

evidenced by the CRA’s demand that Chillán, and all other cities under reconstruction, have a

legally binding zoning plan in order to plan for the future (more in the next chapter).

The Cataclysm Of 1960

As we have seen from the previous two cases, during the twentieth century Chile suffered

some of the worst catastrophes in the history of the world. But it was in May 1960 when the

earth truly shook with all its force. First, on May 21st, it was the run of Concepción, arguably the

city that has suffered the most earthquakes in the history of Chile. It was the holiday that

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commemorates the Naval Combat of Iquique, and also the day the President of Chile gives his or

her annual address to congress. The first quake came at 6:00 a.m. It lasted 35 seconds, with a

magnitude of 8.3, and destroyed one third of Concepción’s buildings. During the same day, two

more earthquakes, of magnitude 7.3 and 7.8, destroyed the rest (Rudolph 1960). However, this

event is not remembered for those earthquakes but rather for the one that struck the next day.

According to USGS it was geologically the strongest earthquake ever recorded (9.2 Ms), and one

of the longest ever (ten minutes). That Sunday morning, people in Valdivia were anxious trying

to communicate with friends and family in Concepción. The radio in Valdivia claimed that the

city was entirely ruined, announcing every few minutes: “it is shaking again in Concepción!”

(Castro 2007). At 3:00 p.m. there was another strong shock, and people worried, “Concepción

again?” But no, since the day before epicenters were moving southward (Lomnitz 1970). Fifteen

minutes later the earth started to shake again, this time with a loud underground noise, like a

river of stones. And then came hell. It is not difficult to imagine how it was, considering the state

of the zone afterward. Large areas of Valdivia sank as much as 13 feet, the earth opened in huge

cracks swallowing everything from people to cars, whole villages were erased completely and

landslides blocked rivers creating dangerous new lakes. It was, according to testimonies, “like an

infernal underground lightening that destroyed everything in its path” (Olave 1961: 15). And

that was not all; ten to twenty minutes after the shock ended the ocean started to retreat, only to

then return to shore in the form of a 39-foot wave. Then the ocean retreated again, only to come

back two more times and stronger, destroying everything in its wake. According to testimonies in

the fishing town of Corral, there were sixteen destructive waves. Overall, no catastrophe before

had affected such a large amount of Chilean territory; 542,216 square miles containing one-third

of the Chilean population and 65 percent of arable land (WB 1961) had been impacted. The

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cities of Valdivia, Puerto Montt and Temuco were completely destroyed by the second day of

shocks. The waves devastated everything south of Concepción, both in the mainland and on the

islands. On Chiloé Island waves damaged four fifths of the buildings (Rudolph 1960). At least

3,000 lives were lost and 300,000 people were left homeless and exposed to the hardship of a

southern winter with its heavy rain (WB 1961). According to the government´s report, damage

amounted to US$400 million and economic activity had been heavily disrupted. Three thousand

people were dead and half the arable land of the country was destroyed. It was, by anyone’s

standards, a true cataclysm.

Luckily, because the location of the epicenter of the worst shock was Valdivia, a mid-sized

city 530 miles south of Santiago, the disaster left the government in good standing to organize

emergency and reconstruction. Also, President Jorge Alessandri had been in office almost two

years before disaster struck, considerably more time that President Montt or President Aguirre-

Cerda. He was an engineer who had avoided partisan politics for years, in order to become the

chief executive of the Confederación de la Producción y del Comercio (Chamber of Commerce

and Production). Because he had no political affiliation he was considered “independent,” but for

all intended purposes he represented the interests of the ruling economic class (Dominguez

1981). In 1958 he was elected with the support of the right-wing parties in a tight election.

Because no candidate had secured an overall majority of the popular vote, the choice of president

fell to Congress, which chose Alessandri, who had a coalition of Conservatives and Liberals

behind him.

After decades of leftist rule, the Jorge Alessandri’s government meant a reorientation of

political economy for Chile. The major problem of the last ten years had been inflation, and this

topic dominated Chilean political debate. For Chilean economists of the left, the reasons for

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economic problems were in the roots of social structure; the hacienda system was still in place,

the distribution of income was skewed and, above all, Chile was dependent on mining (copper)

(Dominguez 1981). But for the right and Chile’s dominant class, the problem was that since

1939 the state had excessively intervened in industrial activities. This was the view sustained by

presidential candidate Jorge Alessandri, who believed that: “the state is not efficient as a

producer. It should limit its activities to assisting and stimulating the private sector” (quoted in

Stallings 1978:65). He believed there was a need to reduce the intervention of the state in order

to increase efficiency so that private parties could regain the initiative for economic development

that had been taken away from them by the state (Dominguez 1981). Hence, when in office,

Alessandri’s first political measures had been the creation of a “stabilization program,” with the

help of the World Bank and other international organizations (WB 1961). This plan involved two

areas of action. First, it involved reducing state intervention in the economy; and second, it

increased the efficiency of the state bureaucracy in order to reduce taxes. The objective was to

control inflation and balance the state budget. Also, with Alessandri came “The CEOs”, the

executives of industrial and commercial enterprises who were supposed to introduce their

managerial expertise in government and provide for the efficiency of the private sector. This new

team implemented these policies, and others, like the reduction of state expenditure and taxes,

restrictions to wage increases in the public sector and the introduction of a new monetary unit

(the escudo).

But after the earthquake, reconstruction and relief soon surpassed other issues, and in the

1961 parliamentary elections President Alessandri saw massive losses. This forced him to

change his strategy. First, he had to get more political, nominating some allied Radicals in his

cabinet, abandoning the CEOs and moving his government to the left. And second, he had to

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take a step back in his stabilization plan, including creating new taxes to pay for reconstruction,

involving the state in economic planning, and even the eventual devaluing the currency. Hence,

by the end of his tenure as President, Alessandri had completely changed his original strategy.

He had a ten-year plan for the economy where the state had a leading role, he had added new

offices for the state to manage reconstruction, and he had even started with Agrarian Reform

(albeit tiny). As I will show next, this was not a product of the government’s convictions, but a

direct result of the catastrophe, combined with the external pressure of the United State of

America and the international offices that had funded reconstruction.

Project for Reconstruction and Economic Recovery

After the earthquake, the Chilean economy was on the verge of collapse; currency had been

devalued and thousands of new homes were needed to accommodate earthquake victims and also

previously existing poor families. In this context, one of the first actions of the government was

to use the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund (constitutional 2 percent) a mechanism

created after the 1939 earthquake to manage precisely this type of emergencies (more in Chapter

4). The Economic and Social Stabilization Fund allows the President to use up to 2 percent of the

nation’s budget on emergency management. Then, two months after the disaster, the government

sent a project to address the reconstruction in the southern regions to Congress. The bill included

proposals to organize reconstruction and also for providing the funds for this goal. It did not

contemplate the creation of any new institution because “this would produce more perturbation

than benefit” (Alessandri 1960b: 1162), and it was not linked to a national development program

because the President felt that this should be two separate projects (as the right had argued in

1939: “both things should be discussed separately”). Furthermore, when addressing Congress to

present the bill, the President argued that in economic terms it was imperative to continue with

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the economic program sustained by the government before the quake (Alessandri 1960b).

Alessandri had been criticized before for focusing only on stabilizing finances and not attending

to economic development, but for him “this came from the conviction that [stability] is

indispensable to create the conditions that will stimulate economic development and then the

welfare of its citizens.” (Alessandri 1960b:39). Instead of creating new institutions, the project

contemplated the modification of the attributions of some government organizations, like the

Development Corporation, CORFO, and the Housing Corporation (the continuation of the

Reconstruction Corporation of 1939). It also contemplated the creation of a committee for

reconstruction (COPERE). Truthfully, this was more of a way to hide state growth than actually

to avoid it. But it was also a way to control the effect of the quake in state bureaucracy. To pay

for reconstruction, the project contemplated the request of exterior loans but also internal taxes.

Among other things, the project proposed a 1 percent increase in income tax for all workers.

But the project could not be approved as President Alessandri designed it. After twenty

consecutive meetings, the commission that revised the bill in Parliament had some major

criticisms. First, they claimed to agree with the executive in that no new organization was needed

and that it was better to strengthen existing institutions. But the commission proposed much

greater changes to present state bureaucracy; they completely changed the project to include a

restructuring of the Ministry of Economy (now to be called Ministry of Economy, Development

and Reconstruction). It was not only a change of name, but also a change of attributions and a

change of the role that the ministry would have in the Chilean economy. New attributions were

not only related to reconstruction, but also included that the ministry lead economic development

in the country. Now, the bill proposed, it should have an active role in planning. Thus,

Parliament’s proposal was a direct critique of the government’s plan to discuss reconstruction

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and development as separate issues. The same discussions were also taking place in the Senate,

which concluded “it would be a mistake to deal with this problem in isolation, without paying

attention to its connection with the rest of the country’s situation” (Actas del Congreso Nacional

de Chile, 1960). Created after the 1939 earthquake, CORFO had been leading the country’s

development in recent years, but in all that time it had not written an official national plan of

development. In 1959, because of pressures from the World Bank, the president had asked

CORFO to draft of a national plan, but it had not been done. Now, parliament was demanding

the new Ministry serve this function.

A second point of dispute was the issue of taxes. Leftist representatives felt that a rise in

income tax would be a shock for workers, especially considering that their wages had been

frozen in the last years as part of the stabilization program. Instead, they claimed, we should tax

industry or at least, as some deputy fervently expressed, have a progressive rise in income tax, in

a way that it did not affected workers. Mr. Vergara, the Minister of Finance, addressed Congress

again, in the name of the President, and simply demanded the reinstitution of the increase of

taxes that had been cut by the commission. Fervently, he argued that “we should lead by

example, and demonstrate our capacity to raise money to help our countrymen in disgrace. A

country that is not moved by the misfortune of several of its members is not a country that

deserves external help” (Actas del Congreso Nacional de Chile, 1960: 2138). From the point of

view of the executive, these taxes were needed to show the commitment of Chilean people to the

earthquake’s initiative, and to “save face” when asking for money abroad. In the end, the

government won this dispute and the tax was put into effect (Law 14.171).

In terms of reconstruction, the new ten-year plan meant that the Housing Corporation

(CORVI) dictated the norms for the implementation of a housing plan (CORVI was a

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corporation created after the Corporation of Assistantship and Reconstruction of 1939). This was

a national housing plan that Alessandri had announced before the earthquake (Alessandri 1960a),

so there was no special plan for the areas most affected by the earthquake, only an increase in the

amount of housing (El Correo, Aug 16, 1960). The plan was written by CORFO, and was based

on the idea that private companies should build the housing, and the state’s role was to promote

and plan this building (Hidalgo 1999). So, in summary, CORFO was in charge of national and

regional planning, and the Ministry of Public Works (through CORVI) was in charge of city

planning. They created regional offices in the regions affected by the earthquakes and gave

contracts to consulting firms to design regional development city maps for areas such as Chiloé

Island (Dominguez 1981). All of these institutions were governed by a new committee, the only

new organization allowed by Alessandri. Named the Committee of Economic Cooperation and

Reconstruction (Comité de Cooperación Económica y Reconstrucción, COPERE), it was in

charge of organizing the different actors implementing reconstruction plans on the ground. This

committee was led by the Minister of Economics, Development and Reconstruction together

with the Minister of the Treasury, the Minister of Public Works, the Minister of Mining and

Agriculture; in addition, the Vice President and the CEO of CORFO, the Vice President of

CORVI and the Director of Budgets also had seats on the committee.

The Ten-Year Development Program

From the beginning, the response to this earthquake was different than either of its two

predecessors. The Chilean government once more reacted quickly, and once more used the

military to maintain order, but this time the government had another ally: the United States of

America. The day after the quake, fifty American planes brought food, medicine and hospital

supplies to the most affected areas; it was one of the largest emergency relief operations ever

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undertaken by the US in peacetime (U.S Dep. of State, 1961). But that was not all; the United

States also contributed U$ 20 million to the costs of urgent issues (President Eisenhower’s

grant). Certainly, it was not the first time that foreign countries had helped with donations to get

through the emergency, but it was the first time that this help had arrived so fast, and that so

much had come from the same country (for comparison, the country that helped the most after

the US was Germany, which gave emergency help of $10 million DM that equaled U$1 million

in 1960).37

This dependency on foreign financing made the Chilean government very vulnerable to the

pressures of international lending institutions and the United States. Foreign debt grew from 569

million in 1958 to 1896 million in 1964 (Dominguez 1981). And this pressure, more than the

pressure from Congress and the creation of the new Ministry, forced the Chilean government to

accept the idea of development planning in spite of its initial strong liberal ideology (Dominguez

1981). Embassy officials informed Alessandri´s administration “words alone would not be

enough to obtain funds from the United States. Steps toward economic development and reforms

that would eventually have positive effects on the social system will be necessary (Taffet

2001:97). Conservative Alessandri, of course, was not supportive of this idea, but he desperately

needed US funding.

This contribution meant the beginning of a number of programs to assist the Chilean

government in meeting the costs of reconstruction. First, “Operation Amigos” organized the

major airlift operation to Valdivia and included two whole emergency hospitals in the city. This

operation was valued at 4.8 US million. Then the previously mentioned grant of 20 million from

37

Delays in the allocation of these funds resulted in an awkward situation. By 1961 Eisenhower´s presidential grant was at work in Chile, but none of the $100 million earthquake relief loan had reached the country. Those funds were allocated in April 1961. (King, 1998)

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President Eisenhower became effective in 1961. But more importantly, the U.S. authorized US$

100 million to help Chile in August 1961, under the Latin American Development Act. Unlike

previous processes of reconstruction, this rebuilding effort featured new actors: international

agencies. These loans were not like the loans from private banks used in the pass; this time,

money came with strings attached. In some cases, loans were attached to specific “development

projects,” in others to conditions to be imposed on the government. And the influence of these

agencies was not small. In fact, they completely changed ideologies held by the government. As

mentioned before, President Alessandri and his team of “CEOs” wanted to return to liberalism as

much as possible. But first they needed to control inflation, and to help achieve this they had

requested the economic and technical help of several international agencies, such as the IFM and

the WB. When disaster struck, the Minister of the Finance (the same Roberto Vergara who later

advocated for the reconstruction law in parliament) had just arrived from the U.S. where he had

discussed the external funding required by the policies and measures of stabilization with the

World Bank, and the World Bank had countered with the issue of planning. Even before the

Alliance for Progress, the U.S. wanted its loans to be assured and this assurance was to be

supported with both careful planning of the projects to be undertaken as well as by the plan for

economic development of the country. Chile had resisted and, in fact, things were going

decidedly in the other direction. For example, during the first years of the Alessandri

administration CORFO had stopped investing in direct production activities and was instead

providing credit (Dominguez 1981). But after the earthquake, a report of the WB cheerfully

concluded:

“one of the most significant recent developments in Chile was the change in

official attitude toward long-term programing of investment. The need for an

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orderly approach to the manifold problems of reconstruction and development led

the public authorities to initiate a ten year-development program” (WB 1961: ii).

Despite the fact that Alessandri and his “CEOs” wanted to reduce the state as much as possible,

the earthquake had made that impossible. First, reconstruction and recovery demanded that the

state take charge. As Alessandri himself concluded in his 1961 presidential address to Congress,

the difficult circumstances of the earthquakes in the southern regions now made it imperative to

establish coordinated efforts to promote economic growth (Alessandri 1961). But also, the

amount and kind of information requested by the international agencies implied more state

control, not less (as Dominguez has noted before me).

The reluctant program covered the period from 1961-70, and envisioned investments

totaling US $10 billion. Although the program had been prepared by CORFO a year before, it

lacked official recognition until after the earthquake when “an orderly approach was much

needed”. And, when gaining the favor of the WB was absolutely necessary. Then, the President

addressed Congress, arguing: “we cannot limit ourselves in repairing the damage without giving

due attention to economic recovery at the highest levels” (Alessandri 1961b: 33). This, he now

claimed, required planning and coordinated action (Alessandri 1961b: 56). Officially called the

National Program of Economic Development and Reconstruction (Programa Nacional de

Desarrollo Económico y Reconstruccion), the program included a Housing Plan that was

supposed to build 530,000 homes, of which 75.5 percent were to be funded by the government.

This included homes for earthquake survivors but also for people who were in need of housing

before the event. Overall, this project laid the foundations for economic expansion that was later

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supported by the Alliance for Progress, and other countries adopted similar projects in years to

come.38

Overall, the United States was never entirely happy with Alessandri’s response to their

demands. They felt that Alessandri was not entirely supportive of his own programs, even though

he wanted U.S. funding (Taffet 2001). “There is no evidence,” the embassy of the U.S. in

Santiago wrote, “that the Alessandri administration intended to really get down and grapple with

most of Chile’s basic problems” (Taffet 2001:97). They felt that “true reforms” such as land

reform and tax reform were not taking place fast enough. All the same, Alessandri felt that the

U.S. had imposed too much on him, and claimed that the conditions forced upon him to receive

the loan for reconstruction were “onerous and odious” (Korry to State Dep. 1967, on Taffet

2001).

A Safer Valdivia

Valdivia is a city 530 miles south of Santiago, the capital. In 1960, when disaster hit,

Valdivia was an industrial and shipping center, with two universities and footwear, beer and

wood-processing factories. The map of the city was quadrilateral, in accordance with the

principles of old colonial cities, and bound by several rivers. This means that Valdivia is settled

in a river valley, close to the ocean, with large parts of it standing on artificial landfills. In this

context, the earthquake dealt a severe blow to Valdivia’s economic base because the subsequent

tsunami almost completely destroyed the area where factories were located, on Teja Island.

Furthermore, in residential areas, between 60-80percent of houses were destroyed and the lower

parts of the city were completely flooded (Castedo 2000).

38

The plan was criticized by the recently created Alliance for Progress in 1962 because of its lack of social elements, particularly an agrarian reform (Committee of Nine, 1962). In response, the Alessandri Government changed the economic plan to include plans in education and a tiny agrarian reform.

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To make everything worse, the 1960 event did not finish when the earth calmed down; there

were other challenges to be faced because of the landslides. The San Pedro River was obstructed,

and this meant that the Riñihue Lake did not have a way to release its water. Catastrophe was

looming again on the horizon because 4,800 cubic meters of water could course through the

valley to the city at any moment. This situation prompted a huge operation known as “The

Riñihuazo” where CORFO and other public offices un-obstructed the river and slowly evacuated

the lake. But it took two months to achieve this task, and for those two months people in

Valdivia had to be relocated to emergency camps in safer spaces. The Intendant declared a state

of siege; the military took over the area and people had to carry special permits if they needed to

be in the lower parts of the city. For people in Valdivia this was thought to be unnecessary and

excessive on the part of the executive (El Correo Jun 3, 1960), but from the point of view of the

government the situation was that dire.

Then, unlike after other earthquakes, people were not discussing reconstruction plans as soon

as they could after the disaster because they were still concerned with their own survival.

Truthfully, after the earthquake of 1960 architects and authorities immediately started to dream

of a new city, as had been the case in previous catastrophes of the same kind. On May 30th

the

front page of the city newspaper, El Correo, read, “A better city will be re built” (El Correo,

May 30, 1960). These were the words of Finance Minister upon his visit to the city, carrying the

message of the President. Now, in this case a better city meant something different than it had in

1906 and 1939; it was not about making Valdivia more beautiful or more “rational” but rather

was about making it safer. A risk perspective was in full force; the new Valdivia should protect

its citizens from the perils of the old one (El Correo May 30; Jun 3; Jun 4; Jun 8; Jun 30; Aug

29, 1960; La Prensa Jun 3, 1960)). As El Correo newspaper demanded “not one wall should be

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saved if it signifies imminent danger, or exposes the lives of the people.” (El Correo jun 30,

1960). Academics and other scientists also started to analyze the effects of the earthquake

immediately after it happened (La Prensa Jun 3, 1960; Jun 10, 1960). But when they noticed the

problem with Riñihue Lake, this conversation stopped. From then on, all there was in the

newspapers was discussion about when the city was going to be flooded. All around Chile people

were alerted to the fate of Valdivia, and news channels talked of little else (Castedo 2000).

Authorities were worried that people were not even helping with the removal of debris, or re-

opening their business because they were waiting to see what was going to happen with the

“famous wave.” (El Correo, Jun 14, 1960). As the newspaper El Correo put it, “the city of

Valdivia does not live, it only survives” (El Correo, July 1960). Finally, on July 3rd

the river

started to carry water again, and on July 24th

the Riñihue was evacuating its waters normally at

last.

When people could finally return to the city, months after the event, there was little left to

come back to. The river had not destroyed Valdivia but the parts of the city that were on artificial

landfill were completely flooded, as well as Teja Island, where most of the factories were

located. Now was the time to think about a new Valdivia, except that while the people of

Valdivia were worrying about the Riñihue Lake, the state had approved a new map for the city,

the “Emergency Zoning Plan” of 1960 (Fogle 1962; El Correo Aug 10, 1960). The guiding

principle of the government’s plan was urban planning, “because it is needed to invest resources

in useful actions,” according to Minister Vergara (El Correo, May 30 1960). The paradigm for

this planning was the reconstruction of Germany after the World Wars (El Correo, Jul 12, 1960;

Jul 14, 1960). The planning was to be done by the office of Public Works in Santiago, together

with CORVI (the Housing Office) and the planning process began in July 1960 (El Correo Jul

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12, 1960). The emergency city map was based on the 1943 zoning plan, with the exception of

those areas that were declared lost to the waters.39

A map of the new Valdivia city plan was

presented in El Correo on June 15th. Changes must be made “where studies determine they

should be,” claimed an editorial in El Correo de Valdivia, “not where some minority groups may

want them to go” (El Correo May 30 1960, Jun 30, 1960). The Municipality approved the plan

in great haste (El Correo, Aug 10, 1960), but it took some time before it became effective, which

delayed the start of several reconstruction projects (El Correo, Sept 17, 1960). With the delay,

more people started attending the meetings at the mayor’s office between the municipality and

the planners from the Ministry of Public Works. But in the end the zoning and regulatory plan

from the central government prevailed.

This does not mean that there were no alternative city maps to rebuild Valdivia from scratch

nor that the map did not change at all. Alternatives were proposed, and changes were made. Most

importantly, there was a city map from the Municipality’s city planning office that had the

support of the International Development Bank. A month after the quake the New York Times

reported that according to its special correspondent in Chile, “the earthquake-stricken provinces

of southern Chile are coming to life again, with the ring of hammers, the rumble of bulldozers

and the drift of smoke across the blue sky” (The New York Times Dec 4, 1960). Why was the

New York Times so interested in the reconstruction in Valdivia that had a special reporter in the

area? To start, reconstruction was being paid for in part with American money, but it was also

people sent by the International Development Bank who were leading reconstruction efforts on

the ground (IDB). Part of the emergency aid provided by the U.S. was directed at contracting

U.S. consultants in city and regional planning to “act as advisors on planning in the earthquake

39

This zoning plan had been created after the 1939 earthquake regulations required every city to have a zoning plan.

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devastated areas of southern Chile” (Navarrete in Dominguez 1981). Even the president of IDB

visited Valdivia within a month of the quake (El Correo, Jun 5 1960). The Ford Foundation also

provided assistance with city planning for the housing projects financed by the IDB. These

consultants assisted municipalities in building the new zoning and reconstruction city maps in

different cities and towns (Valdivia, Concepción, Puerto Montt, Temuco, Corral, Coronel). But

overall, the level of centralism in Chile frustrated the consultants because everything had to be

reviewed by the office of Public Works in Santiago (Condon 1961; Friedman 1969).

Interestingly, for at least one of the consultants this centralization of decision-making in Chile

was (in part) the result of prior catastrophic experiences such as earthquakes (Stochr in Friedman

1969), which is the idea of this dissertation.

Illustration 6: Different plans for Valdivia

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In Valdivia, the planner was a man by the name of Mr. Fogle. He had been charged with

assisting in the implementation of a permanent office of planning in the Municipality and

advising the municipal architects and the architects from the office of Public Works on their

reconstruction and planning tasks. However, he found that: “due to the small staff and the grass

roots nature of the project, it was necessary to assume responsibility and take direct actions

which were not anticipated in the original concept of the job” (Fogle 1962: 6). As a result, he

doubled his efforts and, together with the architects from the municipality, designed a new city

map for Valdivia. The new Valdivia was designed with safety in mind, and as such, it was more

and more terrain for expertise to say how it was going to be done. The “Valdivia City Plan”,

which took into consideration the 1960 emergency plan that created the framework within which

the new municipality planners worked, was ready in 1961. It proposed not only a new city map

but a new role for the city as a river port providing dock and transportation facilities. It also

altered the road system inside the city to a significant degree in order to create an efficient

transportation network (Fogle, 1961). This new city map certainly influenced what was going to

happen with Valdivia. Though it never provided a legal framework, it did act as an enhanced

version of the plan that was sometimes followed. For example, the dock in Las Mulatas was

built, as were some of the new bridges, following the new city map. This was something that the

people of Valdivia had wanted for a long time (El Correo Jun 3, 1960; Aug 17, 1960). But

overall, the office of Public Works in Santiago won almost all of the battles, even though the

planning office of the Municipality (with the help of American planners) were continuously

lobbing to make their plan effective. This city plan, approved by the municipality without much

consultation with Valdivia’s neighbors, was in effect for years after the earthquake.

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As we can see, changes in Valdivia after the earthquake were significant, and doors to

different possibilities were opened. Furthermore, industry never fully recovered in the city; only

56 of 86 industries reopened (Fogle 1962). New neighborhoods were created from scratch to

build homes for the survivors as well as for those who had immigrated from nearby towns (as

part of Alessandri’s housing plan). A new industrial area was also provided for by the new

zoning plan, where surviving industries were relocated. The low floodable areas of the city that

used to contain one fourth of the city’s population were practically abandoned (El Correo, Sep

14, 1960). Finally, Valdivia was re-invented as a tourist destination, and is known as such to this

day. Thus, we see that for Valdivia, the earthquake did mark a critical juncture. Decisions were

made that resulted in critical changes for city planning and industry, and, in the end, turned

Valdivia into a different city.


The 1960 earthquake happened during the term of right-wing President Alessandri, who had

been in power considerable more time than Montt or Aguirre-Cerda had been when disaster

struck. For Alessandri, the earthquake meant being forced to change from a liberal economic

policy to one in which the state played a central role. In fact, he was obliged to go beyond what

his predecessors from the Popular Front had done and commence a plan for an agrarian reform.

The reasons for this change were twofold. First, we see that the earthquake forced Alessandri’s

hand and made him take an active role in reconstruction and development. Once more, we see

that the earthquake has its own agenda, one that calls for a strong, centralized response to

problems of security and destruction. Second, this case demonstrates the importance of the

ideologies of money lenders in determining what kind of policies will be implemented in the

country receiving aid. In this case, the United States demanded a development plan. But in a

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different historical moment things could have been different. Today, the ideology of these

international institutions tends to prefer open economies with fewer regulations. It is to be

expected, then, that any intrusion today would have different results.

At the city level, we have a slightly different story in the case of the 1960 disaster. This time,

the state was able to impose its wishes more easily than in the past. This was in part due to the

emergency situation presented by Riñihue Lake, one which allowed the state to plan when no

one was paying any attention to the planning. However, alternative plans for the city were fully

developed, most importantly by the planners sent by the World Bank. A new Valdivia emerged,

demonstrating that –once more- at the city level destruction signifies a truly critical juncture.

In terms of a risk perspective, we see that by 1960 this paradigm is fully developed. The

reconstruction efforts in Valdivia were devoted to making it safer for future generations, and the

state is seen as responsible for taking the correct measures to assure that this is the result.

CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter, we have seen three cases where catastrophe has disrupted the existing

political equilibrium and forced governments to make important, sometimes radical, decisions in

order to bounce back from disaster. In all three cases, the catastrophe has meant that the state

takes a different role in society than it held before the event. This is especially true for the 1939

case, when President Aguirre-Cerda completely changed the role of the Chilean state by

transforming it into a developer of industry and giving it a crucial role in economic planning.

This was achieved by the creation of CORFO and the CRA, two new agencies in charge of

recovery and reconstruction. But more importantly, these agencies allowed the state to plan the

economy and give strength to a policy of imports substitution. Later, the 1960 earthquake was

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also a critical juncture for Alessandri’s administration in the sense described by Pelling and Dill

(2010). The catastrophe constituted a moment of crucial decision-making, where new options

were not only opened and discussed but also chosen. Even if Alessandri was a reluctant

participant in this process, the fact is that his government was forced to change its strategy,

including the development strategy that it had set for the country. In that case, the path taken did

not mean as much radical change as it had in 1939, but it certainly set the direction for the state

for the decades to come (until the coup in 1973). Finally, with respect to the first disaster

analyzed in 1906, it is not as clear that the earthquake did in fact constitute a critical juncture at

the national level. There were certainly many changes following the disaster, but these were

mainly at the city level. The state did take control of city politics, which constituted a major shift,

but that shift was circumscribed to Valparaíso. The decisions made were certainly momentous

and new options were opened, discussed and sometimes accepted. However, the effect of this

critical juncture was limited to the city that had been the site of the catastrophe, even if the

reconstruction plan of Valparaíso is believed to have set a new nationwide precedent of state

intervention in urban planning.

In fact, at the city level, we see that all three cases are examples of critical junctures for the

affected cities and communities. I will argue that this is always the case when catastrophes are

highly destructive of the physical environment. This destruction necessarily means that decisions

must be made to “set things right.” Reinforcing mechanisms of path dependence are broken

because it is cheaper to choose something different. Problems that may have existed before –for

example, a lack of sewers- can become unbearable when combined with catastrophe, and this

means that authorities must plan to solve them with an urgency that did not exist before. And in

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this process of decision-making, different options are weighed, contemplated, discussed and

debated; making these moments a truly critical juncture for cities and their residents.

Taking all of these cases into account, one of the major conclusions of this chapter is that the

effect of disaster in the political arena is largely explained by pre-disaster social and political

conditions; in general, discussions that follow catastrophes were present in the pre-disaster

moment. What happens with catastrophe is that a window of opportunity for true change is

opened. In part, this window is brought about by destruction because debris and dirt force

governments to do something. In other words, they are forced to make important decisions. And

most of the time, these decisions mark the path that institutions will follow during throughout the

subsequent period. But even if the disaster generates new problems, the debates stimulated by

this destruction were present in the pre-disaster period. Still, catastrophes can become a breaking

point in the political status quo, increasing or changing these existing trends.

On one hand, we see that these decisions tend to lean in the direction of greater state

intervention in society. We have previously established that catastrophes are a qualitative jump

above disasters. As such, they test the state in greater ways, and sometimes even threaten its very

existence. Like wars, communities on their own cannot solve catastrophic events; they need a

stronger power to protect them. Since wars and catastrophes are both a threat to the population, it

is not far-fetched to expect a similar response from the state; particularly because the state’s

basic role is to provide safety to the population. And in fact, this chapter shows that statement to

be true. In general, disaster pushes for a centralized and strong response to emergency

management. One clear way to look at this is by analyzing the city zoning maps that were

created after a disaster; in all three cases the state played a leading role in deciding what to do in

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the cities. Because streets had literally disappeared, the state could draw the new cities almost

from scratch.

On the other hand, another conclusion of this chapter is that the visions and philosophies of

the primary wielders of power are imprinted in the decisions they make in emergency and

reconstruction, although they cannot always do exactly as they wish. In this context of

momentous decisions, the government has the upper hand in deciding what to do. As a

consequence, the ideas, values and philosophies of these leaders are very relevant in determining

what decisions are to be made. As mentioned in the previous chapter, ideas matter not only

because they influence what solutions are considered but, more importantly, because they define

what the problem is. However, it is also true that other political forces are at play. For example,

the ideas of money-lenders seem to be crucial to define what is to be done. In the case presented

here, money-lenders pushed for greater state intervention after catastrophe, but, as the political

motivations of the lenders shift, the case could be completely different in another historical

moment.

It is also important to highlight that power-holders are not the only influential force regarding

what is to be done in reconstruction; culture also plays a significant role. This is clear in the

process of rebuilding cities and the most important values that inspire this process. In all three

cases there is interest in constructing a better city, but this means something different in each

case. In 1906, better meant a more beautiful and hygienic Valparaíso; in 1939, the idea was to

build a “rational” Chillán, following the precepts of modern architecture. And in 1960, the

objective was to redesign a safer Valdivia, including more full consideration of the risk

perspective in the analysis. This shows once more that catastrophes are inserted in history, and

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that this history determines how these events are interpreted, even if they are, at the same time,

capable of changing this interpretation.

Taking into account that the earthquake’s agenda pushes for a stronger state, but the visions

and philosophies of leaders are also important and may go in a different direction, we found that

when these two are complemented there is a stronger state-building effort. The earthquake acts

as the perfect excuse for leaders to create a stronger state. As in the case of war, this means that

the state acts as a racketeer, offering protection in exchange for more penetration in the

population. In the cases where the leader does not want to increase state power, we still see some

progress because, as mentioned before, the catastrophe has its own agenda.

Finally, at the state level, it should be highlighted that when international agencies come on

the scene they wield enormous power over what set of policies are implemented. In the case of

1960, this power was used to augment state power but it may be different in other cases.

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Chapter 4 | INSTITUTIONAL LEGACIES

“The land is fertile and rich in minerals, but unfortunately, there is a price to pay:

this shelf above the Pacific deeps in the direct line of one of the greatest

earthquake belts in the world. The inhabitants of Chile, therefore, expect

occasional earthquakes as we in Europe have come to expect occasional wars.”

The Manchester Guardian, Jan 27, 1939: 10.

Catastrophe makes states. That is the idea underlying this dissertation. At least in the

Chilean case, I have shown that culturally and politically the state has had to adapt to enormous

pressure generated by repeated catastrophes, and this has led to developments that are similar to

what has been described to be the case of war in Western Europe. Specifically, I argue that these

catastrophes have led to the development of new state capacities. As we saw in Chapter 2,

cultural changes had been directly related to these catastrophes. And one of the most important

consequences of these changes has been a social science view on disasters that sees the state as

responsible for risk management and disaster prevention. As a consequence, the state is also

responsible for fixing things when events go wrong and catastrophe happens. Then, in Chapter 3

we have seen that, politically, the Chilean state has changed a lot in the period after catastrophes

due to the fact that governments have to deal with destruction and recovery. These events have

meant, in most cases, true critical junctures for the Chilean state. And finally, in this fourth

chapter, I will show what the product of this process has been: new states capacities. These

capacities are embedded in the new institutions created after disasters, most of them existing

until today to the benefit of Chilean society. They belong to different domains and there is

considerable variation across cases. But, overall, they point out to increased state capacity after

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disaster. And more importantly for this dissertation, these capacities are the direct result of

catastrophe.

THEORIZING CATASTROPHE AND STATE CAPACITIES

It is widely recognized that state institutions exert considerable influence in many important

outcomes, such as economic development (North 1981; Coatsworth 2008), democratic stability

(Linz and Stepan 1996; O´Donnel 1993), conflict (Bhavnani 2006), among others (Soifer and

vom Hau 2008; Hanson and Sigman 2013). In the field of disasters, we know that state capacities

are closely related to the effect of catastrophes on growth; with countries with weaker institutions

suffering significantly greater damage after catastrophes of similar magnitude (Rasmussen 2004;

Toya and Skidmore 2007; Loayza, et al. 2012). In this chapter, I will develop the issue of state

building after catastrophe from this point of view: the development of state capacities. The

definition of state building used here is based mostly in Tilly´s work. Accordingly to his theory, I

defined state building as a process of increasing the capacity of states to interact constructively

with their societies and to pursue its economic, political and social goals more effectively

(Barkey and Parikh 1991). Hence, I see state capacities as the result of the process of state

building, and as a measurement of state strength (Soifer 2008). A state that does not have state

capacity is a weak state; one that manages to administer the territory effectively is a strong state

(Migdal 1988).

Unfortunately, state strength is a concept applied loosely in social sciences (Barkey and

Parikh 1991). According to Hanson and Sigman (2011) there are no less than thirty-three

different ways to measure the concept of state capacity in Political Science. Consequently, most

agree that it is better to speak of state capacities, in plural, since the state has to achieve goals in

different areas. Following Weber, there is a consensus that three are the base line: coercion,

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extraction and administration (Hanson and Sigman 2013; Soifer 2008; Brautigam 2008). Hence,

I conceptualize state capacity as a complex, multidimensional concept (Skocpol 1985) with these

three dimensions to be analyzed in the following sections. By coercive capacity I refer to the

state´s ability to protect the population from threats. Extraction refers to the ability of the state to

impose upon the population it claims to rule, and administration capacity refers to the ability to

provide services to its citizens.

The effect is analog to what Tilly has shown for war-making, extraction, bureaucracies and

their interactions to shape state-building. In fact, as I have shown in several parts of this project,

war and catastrophes have many things in common, especially that they present a threat to the

population and leave destruction in their wake. As a consequence, both constitute a test for a

state that is seen as the ultimate provider of protection. In the case of disasters caused by natural

agents specifically, the threat is permanent and inevitable; even if there is much to do in terms of

managing the consequences. But, especially in the case of tsunamis, destruction of infrastructure

is unavoidable. Furthermore, studies show that the risk of disasters that have never happened to a

population (or have not happened in a long time) are harder to construct as a believable threat

because people avoid thinking about events whose probability is below a certain threshold

(Kreps 1984; Stallins 1995; Klinengber 2002). On the contrary, repetitive disasters such as

hurricanes and earthquakes can be used consistently by the political system as a threat, especially

in the period right after they have caused a catastrophe (Stallings 1995; Gill 2007). Furthermore,

the logics of attribution of responsibility and guilt might work differently for different types of

disasters, with greater political impact of those triggered by a natural agent (Stone 1997).

The second link between wars and catastrophe is destruction. As I have argued previously,

destruction of infrastructure is crucial to understand catastrophe’s effect in state-building. Like

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with wars, reconstruction is a task for the state. Even if it is decided to externalize part of this

task to private interests, reconstruction continues to be the state´s ultimate responsibility and it is

to the state that people will bring their complaints. Reconstruction requires organization and

money. And, just like wars, this means taxation and bureaucracies to organize reconstruction, as

well as to collect and administrate this money. Also, preventing further catastrophe means to

severely regulate and restrict freedom for the population. This means states need to penetrate

their societies more and more, and in increasingly complex forms in order to ensure compliance

of new regulations. And then, to organize both reconstruction and disaster prevention, we need

strong and reliable state bureaucracies. As we saw in the previous chapter, in the aftermath of

disaster state bureaucracies are created or strengthened (given new responsibilities) to deal with

the aftermath of catastrophes; and extraction is needed to be able to fulfill these new state tasks,

pay for the personnel, the materials, etc. As a result, catastrophes have an important effect on

state capacities, disrupting the existing institutional equilibrium, particularly surrounding the

state’s ability to extract revenue from society, the state’s legitimacy to establish standards

(especially in areas related to housing but not limited thereto) and the possibilities for the

creation of new state institutions.

All of this will be dealt with in the next sections. For it, I have organized the exposition in

four dimensions, following my definition of state capacities as multiple. First, I will discuss

coercion capacity; then, I will continue with administrative capacity and taxation capacity. And,

finally, I will add the dimension of state reach, trying to measure how far in the territory this

increase in capacity has gone.

COERCION CAPACITY

Coercive capacity is central to describe any state, particularly in the Weberian tradition that

defines a state as the organization that possesses the legitimate monopoly of violence (Weber

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1918). In this tradition, coercion refers to the state´s ability to protect the population from

external threats, to preserve its borders and maintain internal peace and to tame violence (Hanson

and Sigman 2013). Scholars have used a great range of variables to measure or indicate this

aspect of state capacity. The most common ways of measuring coercion are military size,

military expending and military personnel (Hanson and Sigman 2013). Other measurements refer

to internal security, as the case of private security (Soifer 2012), lynching or “street justice” rates

(Goldstein 2003; Godoy 2006) and violent crime rates (Soifer 2012). All these measurements try

to grasp how much the state invests in security or whether it fails to provide it. None of these

measurements are very helpful for this dissertation because they do not have a theoretical link

with the management of catastrophe. Hence, I will try to show the effect of catastrophe on

coercion using other variables.

First, I will discuss how police forces in Chile have been shaped by catastrophe. Truthfully,

the impact of catastrophe in growing rates of police officers and police stations is minor

compared to other issues, such as worker strikes, but it still explains part of the history of police

forces in the country. And certainly, it shows how, in the aftermath of disaster, the coercive

power of the state finds a place to expand.

And second, the main indicator of state coercion proposed here is very different from all

other conceptualizations. I propose to look at seismic codes and regulations as a measurement of

state capacity. Some may argue that these regulations are an example of the administrative

capacity of the state. And for sure, there is a relationship between seismic codes and the

development of new bureaucracies, but I choose to place this analysis in the coercive section

because these laws are, in fact, violent. I will develop these ideas in the next sections.

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Development of Police Forces as State Capacity

The degree in which states can control crime is a sign of their capacity and determine their

legitimacy. A state that fails to demonstrate its capacity in this regard can have its legitimacy

undermined in the eyes of society (Shiu-Hing 2015). This is why crime rates have been used as a

measurement of coercive capacity by some scholars (Soifer 2012). As the development of the

military is a sign of increased security against external threats, the existing of an effective police

force is a pre-condition for an increase in security against internal threats. This is why I argue

that looking at the development of police forces is a proxy for measuring state strength. And

also, the creation of new police departments and augment of personnel is a measurement of state

growth.

Earthquakes and Police Forces in Chile

In Chile, right after independence there was an impulse to create a police system that

wouldbenefit the nation, guarding institutional order. The first police bodies were created in

1830 with two objectives; to control delinquency in cities and to repress rural bandits. At the

beginning, they were subordinated to the central state and its regional representatives, the

Intendants. But with the Law of Autonomous Municipalities in 1891, the police forces started to

be dependent of communal power, in the hands of the mayor. The state continued to have police

forces of its own in the most important cities, as were the Fiscal Police of Santiago, the Fiscal

Police of Valparaíso and the Gendarmes, for the Araucanía (Miranda 2010). These fiscal police

departments were specialized in the control of delinquency in cities, which has been linked with

increased urbanization by some historians (Miranda 2010). But Bayley, who has studied police

organization in seven European countries during their process of state building, suggests that

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urbanization is not as important as political unrest as a trigger for changes in the police forces

(Bayley 1975). In this case, the development is clearly also due to the increase in popular protest

in the same period.

Summarizing, by 1906 police forces were organized in a mixed system, with some under the

rule of the state and some under the rule of local governments (municipalities). But there were

already voices that asked for a centralized police. Therefore, a process started to make this

happen. This process ended in 1927 when two centralized police forces were created, one

militarized and one civilian (under the power of the government). In this development, the

earthquake of 1906 was very important. That year, the government re organized the Gendarmes

into a new police that was national and not regional or constrained to the Araucanía.

As was described in chapter three, Intendant Enrique Larraín took agile control of Valparaíso

after the horrible disaster of 1906. He was able to do this because he put under his command all

police and military forces in the region, including fiscal police and communal police. And after

the emergency passed, the shortage of housing and the migration of people out of Valparaíso

started to affect the police. People were leaving, but crime was growing. As a consequence,

President Montt decided to increase both salaries and amount of police personnel in the country

(Montt 1907). And also, in a speech to congress in 1907 he asked them to pass a law that would

ensure “a fastest and more efficient police function”: to unite all police, including the gendarmes,

in one body: the Regimiento de Carabineros (Regiment of Police). This regiment will have more

resources and more personnel than all previous police bodies combined. The idea to unify police

forces of the republic did not arise with the earthquake, it had been under discussion since the

beginning of 1906, but it became a reality afterwards and in direct relationship with the need for

better and more organized coercive capacity in Valparaíso. And also due to the fact that a

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18837 18837

19816 19816

20590 20307 20307

17500

18000

18500

19000

19500

20000

20500

21000

1985 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941

Number of Police

1935

centralized police body in the city after the earthquake was remarked upon as having had great

results. Truthfully, the biggest problem at the time was workers´ strikes, and this was the main

objective of a stronger police force. But in his speeches to congress Montt linked this

development to the earthquake (Montt 1907, 1908). By 1908 this law was a reality and police

personnel had augmented in every big city in Chile, including Valparaíso. Out of the 7,400 active

policemen in 1908, 1700 had been added since 1906 (a 23percent increase) (Montt, 1908).40

Finally, in 1927 the decree consolidating the centralized Chilean Police Force (Carabineros de

Chile) was in effect. This development had a strong effect in the size of the police too; for

example, in 1908 a training facility was created, and the Escuela de Carabineros had its first

official class in 1909.

A similar effect occurred after the 1939 catastrophe in Chillán. President Pedro Aguirre

Cerda also sent to congress a project to augment the number of police officers after the quake

“since the catastrophe had demanded greater labors and more sacrifices” to the officers (Aguirre

1939: 19). According to data provided to the author by Carabineros de Chile, by the end of 1939

there were 774 new positions in the force, an increase of 3.7 percent (Graph 1). Of course, there

is no way to know for certain if this increase happened before or after the earthquake, but since

40

The final unification of police forces in one body, including the Gendarmes, will arrive in 1927.

Graph 1: Number of Police Force (Total): 1935-1941

Source: Compiled by author with data from Carabineros de Chile.

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the event happened in January 24, it is to be expected that most of the increase happened after

the earthquake.

Part of these “greater labors” that Aguirre-Cerda mentioned was the recognition of bodies.

To do so, not only more detectives were sent to that work but also, a criminology lab was

organized for this purpose (Decreto Supremo 2416) (Aguirre 1939). This lab was a step towards

the professionalization of crime scene investigation in the country, and became a formal part of

the police forces.

In 1960 police forces were once again under pressure to respond to a major catastrophe. The

earthquake “imposed to Carabineros a never seen before work of heroism, sacrifice and

abnegation”, according to President Alessandri (Alessandri 1961). And the 1961 government´s

public account claims that the earthquake caused the institution “considerable damage.” As a

result, many of their offices had to be re-built, and in this process 42 new police stations were

created in the country (Alessandri 1961). Also, for the first time in seven years the number of

police officers augmented, with 432 new positions, an increase of 1.9 percent.

Because one of the main problems the government faced while dealing with an emergency in

Valdivia (530 miles from Santiago) was the lack of good communications, this became a main

21235 21235 21235 21235

21667 21665

22793

20000

20500

21000

21500

22000

22500

23000

1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962

Number of Police

Graph 2: Number of Police Force (Total): 1956-1962

Fuente: Carabineros de Chile, data sent to the author.

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focus of reform. And this included the police forces; thus, the Police Air Brigade (Brigada Aereo

Policial) was founded that year to help with the work in the affected areas, and was then used to

combat crime in the whole country. This means that Police forces were allowed to have a whole

new domain: the sky.

Concluding, we can see that catastrophes have been good fuel for the increase of police

capacity in the country. In each major event, police forces have increased its presence in the

territory, helping the state to expand the reach of its control and broadcast its power to further

territories. It seems that, as Bayley (1975) has shown for Western Europe, periods of political

turbulence are the principal factor associated with the rise of modern police systems.

“Altogether, there is more evidence of an association between the development of police and

political changes than with more subterranean social movements such as population growth,

urbanization, industrialization, and criminality” (Bayley 1975:357). Also, Bayley has shown that

usually policies and policing are bound together; he claims that in a general way there is an

association between general growth of governments and expanded police. The Chilean case

shows the same developments. For example, the National Identity Card was created in 1924,

allowing police (and the state) a much more individualized control of the population.

All things considered, earthquakes have been moments of political instability and prolonged

popular discontent, and this seems to have led to greater police development, and with it, an

increase in the coercive capacity of the state.

Seismic Regulations as State Capacity

One area in which disasters are known to have important consequences is hazards´

regulation. Accordingly, the twentieth century witnessed a spectacular rise in national activities

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to deal with the environment, many of them created after disasters (Frank et al. 2000). For

example, after the Ohio flood of 1913 and the Great Mississippi flood of 1927 an extensive

program on floods control affected the United States (Barry 1998). The Titanic´s disaster was

followed by an increase emphasis on bulkhead construction, the International Convention for the

Safety of Life at Sea was passed in 1914 and the United States government passed the Radio Act

of 1912 (Eaton 1995). And in Chile, each earthquake has been both a test for old regulations, and

a calling for new ones.

There is no doubt that these new regulations restrict enormously the freedom of a population.

In the case of seismic regulations, what is restricted is the liberty to choose where and how to

live. And even if today we see building codes as normal, when they started people perceived

them as extremely coercive. For example, Chillán´s newspaper La Discusión commented in an

editorial in 1939 that “excessive regulation instead of benefiting progress, it holds it back” (La

Discusión Jun 13, 1939). More recently, liberal economist Milton Friedman showed his concern

that building and seismic codes were getting too coercive for individual initiative and

commented that “building codes impose costs that you might not privately want to engage in

(…) How those productive resources are used is determined not by the private interests of the

individuals who dispose of them but by governmental mandates” (Levy 1992). This is why

building codes are essentially coercion, even if its implementation also means an increase of

administrative capacities; individual and collective rights are relinquished to (or captured by) the

state in return for security.

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Seismic regulations in Chile

As authors have shown, changes and improvements in the building techniques used in Chile

had advanced almost exclusively thanks to earthquakes (Torrent 2013). As a result, Chile has

today one of the most strict and exhaustive building codes in the world (APEC 2013). This is

accompanied by a strong program of verification and enforcement of these regulations on the

part of the state. These regulations are certainly a hindrance for innovation and make

constructing in Chile more complicated and expensive. But both programs have been very

effective in saving lives, as the evaluations of damage after the 2010 earthquake show (Cisternas

2011; Cepal 2010; Betanzo 2010; Bitar 2010). This is extraordinary considering that the

enforcement of rules is known to be low in Latin America (Levitsky and Murillo 2012), even if

Chile is recognized as one of the stronger states in this regard. What this shows is the enormous

power that the state has gained in both urban planning and even private plans of construction. In

this section I will show how deep state control has gone in this area in Chile due to disasters.

By 1906 there were no seismic codes in the country. In fact, there were no regulations on

buildings at all. Some cities had protocols about zoning, the widening of the streets and such, but

their intention was more to maintain a certain esthetics than anything relating to safety. An

exception was Valparaíso that had implemented fire regulations since 1873. Unfortunately, this

fire walls were death traps in the 1906 disaster (Martland 2009). But at least Valparaíso had

some experience with safety regulations that other cities did not. After the 1906 catastrophe the

new regulations made by the Reconstruction Board included some restrictions related to

earthquakes; specifically, streets were now demanded to be wider in the city, which meant

expropriating the front line of most properties. Still, these regulations did not apply to all Chile;

it was a city regulation, albeit decided by an organization that depended on the central state.

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However, after the 1906 earthquake the government decided to create the National

Seismological Service (more in the next section) and his founder, Fernand Montessus de Ballore,

from the beginninglobbied for regulations not only on city planning but also in construction; this

is, the materials and techniques that were being used to construct edifications in the country. One

of the first articles on the bulletin of the newly founded Seismological Service was about “The

Art of Building in Earthquake Countries” (1907) and Montessus de Ballore started to teach a

class on earthquake resistant construction in 1909 in the Engineering School of the University of

Chile. He later made a proposal for a law on seismic construction (based on the only available at

the time, created in Italy in 1908). He was not alive to see this proposal become a regulation, but

it happened in 1928 after several other small earthquakes hit the country.

In 1928, a major earthquake hit Central Chile again causing damage from Valparaíso to

Concepción (300 deaths were counted). This quake was small compared to that of 1906 and the

one to come in 1939, but it led to some important institutional developments. Specifically, the

government created a committee to finally write a law for the regulation of construction with

seismic standards. The General Law of Urban Construction and Development (Law 4563)

prescribes the first building codes in the country, and one of the first to exist in the world that

includes regulations for seismic-resistant buildings. A very exhaustive regulation, the law defines

nine types of buildings and states for each a norm to be earthquake resistant. It includes a

definition of materials, procedures of construction, acceptable loading, wind resistance and other

restrictions. The law was meant to change forever the type of building that people constructed in

the country, and so it did (Torrent 2013). Now, if you wanted to use brick, there were specific

norms, restrictions on the width and height of the walls, depending on the depth of the

foundations and other things. It did not make it impossible to use brick, but it did make it less

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appealing. Much worst was the regulation if you wanted to use adobe, the traditional material in

Chilean houses. With the law of Urban Construction, this type of traditional building was going

to practically disappear from Chilean cities. The effect that this regulation had in the type of

architecture in Chile has been noted by many authors (Torrent 2013). In fact, it was the opening

door to modern architecture in the country (Eliash and Moreno, 1985), a type of architecture that

is intimately related to construction laws for structural calculation, edification permits and urban

development planning. It was promoted by the state through regulation and the creation by law

of the Colegio de Arquitectos (Architects Association) that regulates the professional field (see

Eliash and Moreno 1985; Aguirre 2004).

The code was in fact and advancement in terms of safety, and reports after the 1939

earthquake point out that the new buildings (constructed after the law had passed) were more

resistant (only 20 percent of the new constructions suffered irreparable damage, compared to 67

per cent of adobe construction). This led to the population accepting new restrictions more

willingly, as a newspaper at the time explained: “The earthquake has acted as a tinkle of magic

that, after shaking us cruelty and by surprise, has prompted an awareness of the efficacy of

edicts, decrees and laws of all kinds, whose weight we usually accept only reluctantly” (La

Nación Jan 27, 1939). The state report after the earthquake of 1939 in Chillán was clear: “The

Law of Constructions has proved its efficiency when faced with the earthquake, therefore it must

be incremented” (Torrent 2013) and indicated a series of reforms to be made, especially against

the adobe constructions. Overall, the classical, most traditional way Chilean houses had been

built for centuries was going to disappear under the hand of the state´s regulatory power. Old

houses could still exist, of course, but earthquakes were doing their part in leaving only a few

standing. Now everything new was to be built with concrete.

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The only aspect the law was found lacking by the report was zoning. Buildings were in fact

being built with new, seismic proof, regulations. But cities were still not being planned. The

argument that to prevent major disasters the state should control the expansion and ordering of

the cities had been present in the 1906 earthquake and the experiment in Valparaíso. But it had

been more talk than doing. Proposals form the executive; the Architects association and the

Institute of Urbanism were not being set into practice. But after the 1939 debacle there was again

an opening for more regulation, and there was also a new institution to carry this trough: the

Reconstruction and Assistantship Corporation (CRA). The debate after the earthquake was once

again heated, and even the option of founding the cities in new places was at the table. The big

arguments of architects and planners were all present in Chillán´s reconstruction. While after

1906 a new technique had been imposed by the state, now it was going to be a new city ordering.

Furthermore, the city was now at the center of a new economic order based on industrialization.

Now, every commune had to have a zoning plan.

This is how, by 1960, the worst earthquake in recorded history left less deaths and

destruction than the 1939 disaster. In fact, the worst damage was done by the tsunami and not the

quake (the same happened in 2010). It is thanks to regulations and technology, claimed El

Mercurio´s editorial in the first anniversary of this event, what allows Chile to say to the earth:

“it is true that you hit hard, but I have learned to be ready.” (El Mercurio (Santiago) May 21,

1961).

Later, the urgency created by the disastrous events in 1960 was reinforced by another

earthquake in 1965, which was the most serious to hit the country since 1906 (Lomnitz, 2004).

As a consequence of these two quakes, and looking at the long term, regulations to build anti-

seismic buildings were once more revised and brought up to the strongest standards of the time

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(Norma Nch-433). After that, the state has revised the norm after every significant earthquake in

the country, making sure it is up to date. This includes new norms in 1972, 1985 and after the

2010 disaster. But the bulk of the regulation happened in the twentieth century, after that it has

been more a problem of incorporating new materials and techniques. And, as mentioned before,

the performance of this normative has been considered good, which also means that the state has

been successful in enforcing it.

Conclusively, albeit not a traditional measurement of state strength, the increase of seismic

regulation can be seen as such because it forces the population to give up their freedom in order

to obtain protection, in this case against nature´s forces. In the case of Chile, we see that this

regulation has become more and more coercive after every major disaster, making the state

stronger as a cause of the event.

ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY

Administrative capacity is the broadest of these three dimensions of state strength, and

includes the ability to produce and deliver different public goods and services, the ability to

regulate commercial activity, and to develop state policies (Hanson and Sigman 2013). Besides

hazard regulation, disasters may also reveal other areas in which new regulation is much needed,

or wanted. For example, disasters typically offer an opportunity to address long term material

problems in local housing and infrastructure. It is not only that disaster creates problems by

destroying infrastructure; also, we see that problems that were tolerable before the event become

intolerable after disaster happens. For example, the need fornew public health standards may

arise with greater clarity. And also, in some cases earthquake’s destruction simply gives a chance

for institutions to rethink themselves from scratch, or for new institutions to emerge. This is

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certainly what has happened in Chilean earthquakes. These new institutions are born in

reconstruction process, in order to solve the problems generated by the disaster, but are

maintained as permanent administrative resources for the state, even when emergency has

passed. This makes the Chilean state stronger in everyday life. In fact, as I will show next, many

of these institutions were planned as non-permanent, and ended up not only becoming

permanent, but growing enormously until they become Ministry offices.

1906 Catastrophe

The aftermath of the sad night of 1906 was marked by the reconstruction of Valparaíso, as

described in chapter three. A Board of Reconstruction was created to design and rebuild

Valparaíso, which meant that the state would gain significant power in city politics. But this was

not all, at the state level the catastrophe meant some important institutional development that

increased the state´s administrative capacity. In the context of the period, thesenew institutions

are very important steps in the way of state building.

As it has been mentioned before, by 1906 Chile was in a parliamentary period that was

closest to an oligarchy than a democracy. And this oligarchy believed in liberalism, this is, they

believed that the state should stay out of as many issues as possible. The consensus among most

historians is that government intervention remained low during the parliamentary period, and

that social policies in the country developed only after the end of the period, in 1924. According

to Urzua and Garcia´s study of Chilean bureaucracy, in this period, state´s administration is

reduced to a minimum, and with few attributions (Urzua and Garcia 1971). Even so, this

structure has strong capacity in the sense that it has been evaluated as doing very well, those few

number of tasks that it should be doing. Mainly, to control mineral exports (Urzua and Garcia

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1971; Fernandez 2003). However, recently historians have shown that the roots of social

policies in the country can be traced, albeit lightly, to the parliamentary republic (Mac-Clure

2012; Yañez 2008). As I will try to show next, the earthquake of 1906 was crucial for the

development of some of these first initiatives of state intervention. And this is something that

historians have failed to notice.

National Seismological Service (Servicio Sismológico Nacional, CSN). The 1906 disaster was a

push for the development of sciences in Chile. Discussions about the nature of the quake were

heated, with different scientific and proto scientific theories fighting to become the dominant

paradigm to interpret the event. In fact, the earthquake of 1906 had been predicted; a formal

announcement had appeared in El Mercurio newspaper the days before written by a Navy officer

who used the position of the stars as his method (also called Solectrics). These predictions lead

to a series of new announcements of earthquakes in the days after the event. If the original

announcement was lucky, the rest was not. But people were still spending the nights under the

stars fearing the shocks that were being prognosticated to no avail (Giordano 2013).41

The

problem was such that the government had to prohibit further announcements.

With a firm commitment to develop a more scientific account of the earthquake, the

government created a Scientific Commission for the Study of the Earthquake (Comisión

Científica para el Estudio del Terremoto) with the aim of collecting all possible information

about the earthquake. With this in mind, the commission travelled around Chile asking what had

happened in different communities and what changes had been observed in the environment. But

this commission could not fulfill their mission completely since information was scarce and

41

For more on this story and how the officer managed to get his prediction right see the interesting little book by astronomer José Luis Giordano. (2013). La predicción del terremoto de 1906 ¿ciencia o fantasía? Editorial Académica Española.

168

witnesses’ accounts were dissimilar even in the same cities (Valderrama 2013). As a

consequence, the government decided to found the Servicio Sismológico de Chile (Chilean

Seismological Service) that opened in 1908 (National Seismological Center of today). This

center was dependent of the Minister of Public Instruction (later, Ministry of Education) and was

the first of its kind in Latin America.

The government hired seismologist Fernand de Montesuss de Ballore, a French nobleman

and pioneer of seismology. He developed the SSC, installing one of the best seismological

networks at the time and advocating for what he called “the art of building in seismic countries.”

Before he arrived to Chile Montessus de Ballore was already well known as a seismologist; he

had published twenty-three articles on the historical seismicity of different regions of the world;

had been participating in international meetings and kept abundant correspondence with the best

seismologists around the world. Once in Chile, he installed the first seismological station in the

country, started in 1908 with a station in Santa Lucía Hill. Later, stations were constructed in

Tacna, Copiapó, Osorno, among other places (Valderrama 2013).

Also, Montessus de Ballore carried out an impressive academic work with worldwide

earthquake data. In fact, the first issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

published, in the first page, a map of the distribution of seismological stations in Chile by

Montessus de Ballore. Likewise, the observations about Chilean earthquakes were published in

the newly created Bulletin of the Chilean Seismological Service. The bulletin covered all kind of

geological issues: the lack of periodicity of Chilean earthquakes, the development of seismology

in Japan, and the seismic folklore of Chileans and other cultures, among others.

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In this Bulletin, Montessus de Ballore constantly rejected the idea that the planet or any force

outside the earth´s crust could cause earthquakes. He thought that because measurements of

earthquakes started as one more column in metrological reports seismology has been doomed to

carry this “astronomical yoke”. But the “rational alliance to make”, in his opinion, was with

geology. However, Chileans were disappointed by the fact that Montessus de Ballore’s method

lacked any type of prediction of earthquakes. On the contrary, they believed that the astronomic

theories sometimes got it right. At this point in history, the faith in science in Chile was at its

highest; there were big expectations, and Montessus was not able to fulfill them. As a

consequence, he suffered personal attacks in the press. But the state defended him and

maintained him in his post. Montessus answered calmly explaining that the state of scientific

knowledge about earthquakes had not yet arrived to a profound understanding of the nature of

the process, and therefore there could be no prediction but there could be prevention. And this is

probably the most important legacy of Montessus de Ballore: his focus in seismic building.

Today, the National Seismic Center still exists; its mission is to deliver seismic information

to the National Office of Emergency (ONEMI) and to the Hydrographic and Oceanographic

Service of the Chilean Navy (SHOA). In February 2011, after the 2010 disaster, the CSN set up

65 seismological stations around the country, one of the most impressive seismographic

networks in the world.

National Bureau of Ports. (Junta Central De Obras de Puertos) As described in chapter three,

after the earthquake of 1906 the destiny of the Port was not easily solved. For one side, the plan

for reconstruction of Valparaíso that was finally approved did not include an inner harbor, or any

harbor at all. On the other side, the commission of the port continued to session even before the

construction of the city was underway; under the assumption that the Krauss Project had to be

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built as it had been planned before the earthquake. This was not the only problem in the

administration of ports in Chile, but it was certainly one of the most important ones (Falgade

1906; Hernandez, 1926).

The government, then, decided to create a National Bureau of Ports to design and present a

national policy for ports that should start with Valparaíso and San Antonio. For Alberto Fagalde,

director of the port´s board, the lack of a general guidance on ports from the national level was

one of the causes of the lack of appropriate infrastructure (Falgade 1906). The new institution

was approved on September 1910 (Law 2.390), in its 5th article it clearly states that the President

can use whatever land he decides for the expansion of the ports. A little too late to take over the

plain of Valparaíso, since by 1910 the new El Almendral was deep in its way. But still, the

enlargement and betterment of the port reinforced the shift towards greater state involvement in

the city (Martland 2003).

However, the new bureau and its executive powers did built a new port in Valparaíso. And

furthermore, to make sure the port was safe during further calamities, the refurbishing of the port

included a huge renovation of Valparaíso´s hills, including paving of the streets and the

construction of sanitary lines that would also help with heavy rains and avoid flooding the port

area (as it used to happen before the quake). With the National Bureau of Ports, the state finished

taking control of the city and set the bases for urban planning in Chile in the years to come. And

also, the state had a new institution to administer ports in the whole country.

The Bureau of Workers´ Statistics (Oficina De Estadísticas Del Trabajo). The 1906

earthquake created new problems in Chile´s labor market and workers’ situation. For example,

housing for workers was a real issue; and after the earthquake it became worse. As a result, many

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workers left Valparaíso for Santiago or for the north. This generated a lack of workers in

Valparaíso, with an increasing demand for reconstruction. As a consequence, wages for

construction workers in the city grew considerably, which created a problem to find workers for

other industries (MOP 1907).

To tackle this problem, the Ministry of Industry and Public Works (Ministerio de Industrias y

Obras Publicas) created the Bureau of Workers´ Statistics. The decree that creates this office

clearly states that “the need to start to produce statistics about workers became imperative after

the catastrophe” (MOP 1907: 1). The new bureau was created by executive decree, with no

involvement of parliament. It was a small office, only three people worked there during the first

years (Mac-Clure 2012). But it will become a crucial tool of the Chilean state, acquiring greater

attributions in 1910 as the Bureau of Work (Oficina del Trabajo), and later becoming what is

today the Ministry of Labor.

Most historians of the period have not even noticed the creation of this bureau, and its

importance for the development of social policies in the following decades. But Yañez (2008)

has traced state social intervention in Chile directly to this office. According to the author, the

creation of the office responded directly to the interest of the executive to interfere in the “social

issue” (Yañez 2008: 24). The office was not in the agenda of any party, nor the workers’; it

occupied no place in political debates at the time. Neither was it the product of formalizing a

process that was already happening; statistics about workers and workers’ conditions were

nonexistent until the creation of the office (Yañez 2008: 23). What Yañez´s study of the first

years of this bureau shows is that the aim of the office was clear: to intervene in society, and to

legitimize state intervention in the relationship between workers and their employers. And

because of this, we can say that the office defines a new, direct, relationship between the worker

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and the state that did not exist before the earthquake. In fact Yañez (2008) shows that there was a

constant intent, on behalf of the office, to increase its authority from mere statistics to having the

power to inspect factories and regulate negotiations between workers and factory owners. The

first projects for the bureau included these attributions (MOP 1907: 6), but it was later refuted

because of the opposition of several ministers. The work of inspecting workers’ conditions was

in the hands of the municipalities, along with all regarded to hygiene and health. The problem

was, of course, that municipal governments were formed by the most illustrious citizens of such

city, including factory owners. For this reason, the creation of an Office of Labor Inspection had

to wait a few more years, but it will exist after the consistent lobby of the Office of Worker´s

statistics.

The work of this office in the decades to come, especially during the decline of the nitrate´s

boom, was crucial for the development of autonomy of the Chilean state (Yañez 2008). Also, it

was crucial for the development of new social policies since reality does not exist until we

measure it. The politics of knowledge and its control determine outcomes. And here is where the

power of the new office resided, by measuring reality it made it visible.

Summary

As we can see from the previous section, the 1906 disaster was not immune to the effect of

catastrophe, even if the government at the time of the Parliamentary Republic was mostly against

any state growth. In fact, we see an increase in state capacity in different domains. For one side, I

argue that the 1906 earthquake is the culmination of this process of paradigm change that I

started to describe in Chapter 1 with the 1822 case. The creation of the National Seismological

Center is reflection of this change. Also, we see that the states decides to organize a field that

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was disordered and collapsed after the disaster; the administration of ports. It was not that new

problems arise with the earthquake, but the same problems became unbearable. The solution

then, was a stronger state. Finally, and most importantly, we have traced the development of the

first social policies in the country to the earthquake, with the creation of the Bureau of Workers´

Statistics. It is true that the most important role of this bureau will come later, with its

development into a Labor Office. But the creation of this office is intimately linked with the

needs created by the earthquake. Overall, what this case shows us is that even when there is no

political intention, destruction has its own agenda. Some problems have to be solved, and

increasingly the answer to these problems will be the state.

1939 Catastrophe.

By 1939 Chile had a profoundly different state than in 1906. The parliamentary system had

collapsed after 1925, giving place to a presidential system. Also, there were several changes in

terms of public policies; the first housing policies were enacted in 1906, the first health policies

in 1918 and public education was growing. However, historians agree that the role of the state in

economic development was still nonexistent. The governments of Carlos Ibañez-del-Campo

(1927-1931) and Arturo Alessandri (1925; 1932-1938) had attended the necessities of “the

people” by creating a more charitable state, but not one that took control of the fate of the

country, or even one that was responsible for their economic future. The “social laws” of 1925

attended the most crucial needs of the proletariat- housing, health and education- but did not

change an iota of the economic system of the country. In fact, the intervention of the state in any

area of the economy or industry was either nonexistent or very low (Larrañaga 2010). The

politics of liberalism had survived the revolution of 1925 even if the parliamentary system did

not.

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But by 1939, newly elected President Pedro Aguirre-Cerda had a completely different idea of

the role the state should have in the economy (Fernandez, 1938; Super 1975). And he got elected

because he promised to make the state accomplish this role. However, we know from Chapter 3

that without the earthquake it is very difficult that he would have managed to fulfill this dream.

The earthquake certainly opened an enormous window of opportunity, a political juncture where

a whole new political path was set for the country. The change in terms of public administration

was enormous. If in 1940 4.2 per cent of the population was working in public administration, by

1955 this number grew to 5.4 per cent (Urzua 1971). And this change is reflected in the creation

of two new state institutions: CORFO and the CRA. As I showed in Chapter 3, the conservative

right presented no argument against the creation of the CRA because its role centered in

reconstruction, but they refused CORFO because its focus was economic planning. After some

significant political wrestling, both institutions were approved by congress (with the crucial vote

of the conservative deputy that represented the district of Chillán, the most affected by the

earthquake). The conservative right was not happy; they feared CORFO would mean a bigger

state. And they were right. In fact, not even in their worst nightmares could they have imagined

what CORFO would mean in terms of increasing the administrative capacity of the state in the

years to come. And furthermore the CRA, that was supposed to be a momentary apparatus,

ended up becoming the permanent Corporación de la Vivienda (Housing Corporation, or

CORVI) and then absorbed by the new Ministry of Housing (1965).

Reconstruction and Assistantship Corporation, CRA. The CRA, Reconstruction and

Assistantship Corporation, was responsible for the assistance of victims and rebuilding of

infrastructure of the zones directly affected by this natural disaster. This included designing the

zoning plans for the cities destroyed, leaving municipalities as a consulting body. It also included

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the administration of the loans for reconstruction and to declare eminent domain in every piece

of land that was needed to fulfill the mandate of the corporation.

Time will give more relevance to CORFO, but it was the CRA that was in charge of

reconstruction in 1939. Depending directly of the Finance Ministry, that oversaw reconstruction,

it is in this corporation that we see first the new role of the Chilean state; it was not only about

making Chillán again, but about setting the foundations to make Chile again (Carvajal 2011).

The CRA was in charge of reconstructing houses, either by loaning money to the families

affected or by constructing new buildings in the case of fiscal constructions. Its initial

calculations pointed out that at least 30,000 new houses were needed in the area most affected

(Behm, Política de la vivienda seguida por la Corporacion de Reconstrucción y Auxilio 1942).

But furthermore, the CRA was giving the responsibility to reconstruct public infrastructure and

to draw zoning plans for every city or town that needed to be totally or partially reconstructed. In

this context, the CRA could expropriate, sell or buy whatever property that they saw fit (Law

6334) (Behm 1942).

The CRA is also a good example of what Tilly (1985) calls “displacement effect" and others

have call “ratchet effect,” this is, that temporary increases in state power are thought as

temporary but at the end never reversed. This effect is expected after wars or other “major

disturbances” (Legrenzi 2004), and it has been confirmed by different studies. Peacock and

Wiseman (1961) established that in the United Kingdom while in normal periods governments

grow regularly, during wars the public resistance against government growth is lowered, in order

to finance military expenditure. In this line, Tanzi and Schuknecht (1995) showed that most

European countries exhibited a relevant growth of governments after the World Wars; and that

institutions created in this period are maintained in the post war period. The same has been found

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by Higgs (1987) for the United States. Moreover, some of these authors have shown that “other

major shocks in the economy” different than wars can also unleash these mechanisms (Peacock

and Wiseman 1961; Legrenzi 2004; Higgs 1987). For example, Nomura (1995) has found

evidence of a displacement effect in Japan after the oil crisis and Higgs (1987) in the case of the

United States and the Great Depression.

In this line, I am arguing that catastrophes are one of these moments in where an increase in

the size of government is clear, and –as I have shown with this example- institutions have a

tendency to endure even when emergency has passed. In the case of the CRA this is most

extreme. The initial mandate of the CRA considered a limited range of zones and a sunset clause

after six years. In fact, the conservative circles had agreed to the creation of the CRA from the

beginning only because they assumed this was a temporary institution. But after consecutive

small quakes and fires, different updates to the law extended its mandate four times and

expanded its operation area to almost every region of the country42. In 1953, it was still operating

and was integrated into the newly created Corporación de la Vivienda (Housing Corporation, or

CORVI), a state institution with the responsibility of administrating public housing in a stable

way, as opposed to depending on natural disasters to provoke action (this later became the

Housing Ministry) (See also: Carvajal 2011).

From 1939 to 1953 the CRA created 6.759 new houses; 5.125 via loans and 1.454 through

direct construction. Also, it constructed 2.113 emergency apartments that lasted for much more

than the emergency phaseafter the disaster (Bravo 1959). Overall, the CRA changed the housing

42

The Corporation operated first in the Provinces of Talca, Linares, Ñuble, Concepción, Biobío and Malleco. With time, the following areas were added: Coquimbo and Atacama and the Department of Petorca (earthquakes on 1922, 1943 and 1945), Calbuco (fire on January 1943), Curacautin (fire of August 1943), Puerto Aysen (fire of February 1947), Peumo and Rengo (earthquake of 1945), Arica (tsunami of 1949), Castro (fires of 1936, 1937 and 1938). In 1948, Law N 9.113 extended its mandate until December 31st, 1958 and change its name to simply Reconstruction Corporation. But in 1953, it was transformed into CORVI.

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politics of the Chilean state, making it more inclusive and extensive. And as such, it increased

the power of the state to deliver services to its citizens.

Production Development Corporation, CORFO. The Production Development Corporation

was created in 1939 to help industrialization in the country. The law that created it established as

its mission to “design a plan for national production development” (Law 6334). CORFO quickly

became a central agent in Chilean economy, lending to private sector borrowers, serving as an

investment bank, engaging in technological research and starting new, state-owned companies.

In the first four years CORFO invested in 53 companies that focused in manufacturing, mining,

agriculture and energy. In 23 out of these 53 CORFO held a majority of the voting shares. Also,

its investments accounted for 30percent of the country´s total investment in machinery and

equipment (Jones and Lluch 2015). Similar developments will occur in Argentina in 1949 with

the creation of the Ministry of Production and in Brazil with the Ministry of Industry in 1960.

Thus, CORFO was a leading example of an agency to boost industrialization and development

for Latin American countries.

However, the first task of CORFO was to bring the economic areas affected by the quake

back to life. Its focus was the implementation of several “Immediate Action Plans”; there was a

plan for the mining industry and one for agriculture, and similar operations for commerce and

transportation. Later, an Electric Energy Production Promotion Plan and an Industrial Promotion

Plan were also implemented. In the long term, CORFO served to execute important policies of

the Popular´s Front agenda. For example, CORFO created the Empresa Nacional de Electricidad

(National Electricity Company, ENDESA) and the Compañía de Aceros del Pacífico (Pacific

Steel Company, CAP). In time CORFO developed numerous companies such as Laboratorio-

Chile (National Pharmaceutical), Industria Nacional de Neumáticos (tire industry, or INSA),

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Chile-Films (films and movies) and Madeco (copper and steel products), among many others.43

So by creating CORFO, the state did not only increase its administrative capacity adding one

new state agency, but the whole understanding of the role of the Chilean state in development

changed its axis. Now, the state was the major industrialist in the country.

The impact of this on state capacity was enormous. The amount of public employees rose by

nearly one-sixth between 1937 and 1941 (Sater and Collier 2004). By 1952 this number had

doubled compared with 1930´s capacity (234,781 people in 1930 versus 478,913 in 1957 were

hired by the state´s bureaucracy (Hurtado 1966)). Also, the effect on the productive capacity of

the country was impressive. The amount of people hired in the industrial sector changed from 15

per cent of active population in 1930 to 18 per cent in 1952 (Hurtado 1966). The same effect can

be seen in mining, where the production of nitrates no longer surpassed copper. If in 1930 12,000

people were working on copper mines, in 1943 there were 21,000. Not surprisingly, if by 1930

the percentage of people living in rural areas still surpassed those living in cities (51,8percent),

the 1940´s census shows that the relationship had changed and 51percent were living in cities

(Hidalgo 2000). By 1960, 64percent of population will live in urban centers.

With time, CORFO became the most important state-led organization in the country. Today

CORFO’s focus is to promote investment, innovation, and cluster development in the country.

Economic and Social Stabilization Fund (“Constitutional 2percent”, Law 7.727). Lastly, a

small but crucial constitutional reform was passed after this earthquake. It was enacted in 1943

after another two small earthquakes caused minor damage. Known as “Constitutional 2percent"

(Ley 7,727) the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund allows the president to dictate “decrees

43

Most of these companies are no longer in the hands of the state; they were privatized during the Chilean dictatorship (1973-90).

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of economic emergency” that allows the government to spend up to 2percent of the annual

budget on emergency issues, needs derived from public calamities that cannot be postponed, or

services that cannot be closed without causing damage to the country. After this law, the

Economic and Social Stabilization Fund has been invoked after every major earthquake, as well

as for fires, flooding and epidemics. Furthermore, other types of “public calamities” have been

confronted with this money, such as unemployment (1965) or improvement of the public

transportation system in Santiago (2008).

Summary

In this section I have shown from another perspective what I had already presented in

Chapter 3. The 1939 was a momentous event in Chilean history. It presented a critical juncture

for the government and Aguirre-Cerda used this opportunity to change the role that the Chilean

state had in the economy. This change was reflected in two new institutions, the CRA and

CORFO, both denoted greater involvement of the state in society, a significant increase in state

bureaucracy and an increase in state capacities. For these reasons, they are a prime example of

state building after catastrophe. Of course, there is no way to know if Aguirre-Cerda would have

been able to create CORFO without the earthquake, but the fact remains that it was thanks to the

earthquake that he did.

Finally, in terms of the development of a risk management program, the creation of the

“Constitutional 2percent” is an important step. It signals that the state is responsible for

managing the consequences of any calamity that happens in the country. This, together with the

creation of the first seismic regulations in 1928 (described in the previous section about seismic

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codes), affirms what I have been arguing since Chapter 1; when everything goes wrong we look

at the state for answers. It is this idea that contains the force for state building after catastrophe.

1960 Catastrophe.

By 1960 Chile was being ruled by a right wing government under the leadership of

entrepreneur Jorge Alessandri. In this context, the state´s reaction to the catastrophe was to avoid

a bigger state, at least formally. However, the earthquake and the United States´ conviction that

Latin America should face a different future forced Alessandri´s hand. He was required to design

a plan for reconstruction that included issues of development, recovery and, most of all,

economic planning. Still, the development of new state bureaucracies was hidden as much as

possible. The way to do this was to increase the capacity of already existing institutions, instead

of creating new ones. Still, the restructuration of the Ministry of Economy contemplated an

office of reconstruction that managed the whole plan and was in charge of controlling that the

different offices did their parts. This also contemplated the creation of a committee for

reconstruction with participation of different ministries. These two developments, along with

new regulations and taxes, show that despite Alessandri´s reluctance to highlight the role of the

state in society the Chilean state did gain state capacity during this period. In fact, very important

developments followed catastrophe.

Ministry of Economy, Development and Reconstruction. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the

reconstruction project of 1960 contemplated the modification of the attributions of some

government organizations and the creation of a committee for reconstruction (COPERE).

Truthfully, this was more a way to hide state growth than actually avoid it. But it was also a way

to control the effect of the quake in state bureaucracy. The main change was the creation of the

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new Ministry of Economy, Development and Reconstruction (Law 14,171). The changes at this

office meant new attributions for the previously existing Ministry of Economy but its main

immediate purpose was to alleviate the damage caused by the earthquake. Furthermore, it was

not only located in new offices, with a secretariat in charge of reconstruction; but also, the office

assumed new tasks, especially coordinating economic recovery and reconstruction and the

administration of the funds for such a task, especially those coming from the United States. And

furthermore, it was in charge of overseeing the development of the planning of the economy, the

coordination of investments in the public sector and determining its priorities (Alessandri 1962).

In terms of personnel, this meant that eight hundred more people were working in the ministry in

1965 than 1959, a 76 per cent of increase (from 1,031 people in 1959 to 1,823 in 1965) (Urzúa

1971).

COPERE. As I mentioned in the previous topic, in 1960 the work of reconstruction and

emergency management was overseen by a committee for reconstruction and economic planning

called Comité de Programación Económica y de Reconstrucción, known as COPERE. This

committee was formed by the Minister of Economics, Development and Reconstruction together

with the Minister of the Treasury, Public Works, Mining and Agriculture; also, the Vice

President and the CEO of CORFO, the Vice President of CORVI and the Director of Budgets.

With an executive office depending of the new Ministry, COPERE was in charge of organizing

reconstruction and managing the emergency.

The COPERE was still functioning when, in 1965, another disaster happened: an earthquake

in the northern regions of Chile. As a consequence, the committee decided to create a more

formal agency that was named the Emergency Office of the Interior Ministry (Oficina de

Emergencia del Ministerio del Interior, OEMI). It was the first step to change the way disasters

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were being managed in the country. The creation of a more permanent office meant that the state

was going to take official responsibility for managing catastrophe. But even so, at first, OEMI

was mostly a warehouse to store materials needed to assist survivors of disaster. Still, this was a

crucial shift towards a risk paradigm; the state was officially and permanently taking

responsibility for disaster. A reflection of this is that the first National Plan of Emergencies was

approved five years later, in 1970. This plan assigned tasks to all state offices, starting by the

Minister of Interior that oversaw the OEMI. And finally, in March of 1974 the OEMI was

officially recognized as a new state organization and was now the ONEMI, National Office of

Emergencies; a technical office specialized in all matters of civil protection with the mission of

preventing and solving the problems derived from disasters (DL 369). With the creation of

ONEMI the change of paradigm towards a risk perspective was even more fully settled (ONEMI

2004). An example of this is the institution of Operation DEYSE, an exercise of earthquake

protection that is practiced in all schools in the country regularly. This office is currently going

through a new process of redesign to make all protocols and technologies up to date, after the

evaluation of the 2010 actions was not satisfactory. It should soon be called Office of Risk

Management and Emergencies and it is designed to be part of a greater System of Risk

Management in the country (this is explained further in Chapter 5, Epilogue).

So we see that this is also a clear example of displacement effect (ratchet effect). As I explain

in the case of the CRA, this means that once a new state institution is created it is very unlikely

that it will disappear, what happens then is that bureaucracies re-invent themselves to continue to

function. Today, this permanent office works for the benefit of Chilean society every day,

maintaining a role of coordinator of different public offices in all kind of emergencies. Also, it is

now in charge of risk management, including education and prevention of disasters.

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The Earthquakes´ Law (Law 16,282). This law was passed in 1965, after a minor earthquake

devastated the northern area of La Ligua (Magnitude 7.4). But since 1960 the idea of legally

stating special powers to the state in emergency was being discussed. Law 16,282 addresses this

issue. Known as “The Earthquakes Law” (Ley de Sismos), it establishes that the president should

define the area to be designated “Zone of Catastrophe” (art. 1) and, in this area, it gives the

President the attribution to rule by “exceptional decrees”. These norms have to be directly related

to solve problems in the communities affected or to make help more efficient. Besides this, the

law regulates commerce in the face of catastrophe, prohibiting any speculation with basic goods

and services, and punishing anyone who hoards food or supplies (art. 4). The norm also defines

who is a victim of the earthquake (damnificado) as anyone who has suffered considerable

damage due to the disaster (art. 2). Under this rule, the president can even abolish taxes in the

area, albeit momentarily (art. 3). Finally, it allows the government to make use of the army to

manage the emergency and to form an emergency committee in the region that will take strategic

decisions. This law has been used in every disaster in the country ever since.

The National Telecommunications Office. The earthquake of 1960 showed Chileans the

substantial communications problems of their country (Alessandri 1961). The affected area had

been left completely isolated for days, there was no road to get to Valdivia, the port was unable

to function and there was no airport close by. US airplanes had to use whatever was left of

highways to bring help. And the situation could have become even worse if the Riñihue Lake

had collapsed. The government even faced the responsibility to review some 8,000 miles of

charts of maritime canals from the island of Chiloé to the Strait of Magellan, since islands had

disappeared and others had appeared (Rudolph 1960). The need to improve long distance

communication was clear after the quake and the whole system, heavily damaged, was

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modernized. This is why after the event the government demanded a careful review of this issue

to a commission, an advisory organism in charge of improving the telecommunication network

(DFL 315). The plan of the commission consisted in connecting Santiago to the whole country

(thus connecting the country together) with short wave connections from Arica, Iquique,

Antofagasta, Puerto Montt and Coihaique. Also, new radio circuits were created from Puerto

Montt-Ancud, Puerto Montt-Maullin, and Punta Arenas-Rio Gallegos (Alessandri 1961). This

meant that by 1964 there were 55,104 more telephone lines in the country than in 1960 (Braun et

al. 2000). Finally, by request of the commission, in 1964 CORFO created a National

Telecommunications Office (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Chile or ENTEL). The

company begat its activities with a capital of US$ 5,000,000 and their first activity was

materializing the commission’s plan. This company made Chile a frontrunner in

telecommunications in Latin America. It was the second of such public companies in the

continent (only surpassed by Argentina, in 1948) and the first to initiate satellite communications

in the continent in 1968 (Carvallo-Fernandini 2008).

Summary.

The 1960s earthquakes had important developments in terms of state capacity, even if it was

against the President´s wishes. Changes were hidden as much as possible but they occurred

nonetheless and had important consequences for the Chilean state. One of the most important

ones was the creation of the reconstruction committee, COPERE, which ended up becoming

ONEMI, nowadays the Office of Risk Management and Emergencies of the Chilean State. Other

institutions also followed, like the national commission for telecommunications that created the

National Telecommunications Office. Also, the bill that created the “Constitutional 2percent”

and the “Earthquakes Law” have become permanent tools for the state to manage all kind of

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emergencies and calamities. Overall, we see that President Alessandri was forced to do much

more than he wanted, and in the direction of state building.

EXTRACTIVE CAPACITY

There is probably nothing more central to state capacity than raising revenue. Some have

even defined the boundaries of the state exclusively in terms of its ability to tax constituents

(North 1981; Levi 1988). In the words of Historian Rudolf Braun, “financial means are the nerve

of the state.” (Braun 1975: 243). Furthermore, he claims that “the right to impose and collect –

that is, to administer- taxes became one of the means by which seigniorial or patrimonial

authority over people was transformed into authority over territory.” (Braun 1975: 243). In other

words, fiscal demands are the first sign of life of the modern state; it is what permits it to

function and this is why it is in the heart of state building (Braun 1975; Ardant 1975; North

1981; Levi 1988). Also, setting up taxes and collecting them are difficult operations and this

difficulty has always weighed heavily upon the state (Ardant 1975). Because of this, taxation has

important political consequences and it is also related to the development of new bureaucracies

to deal with these challenges.

Taxes are “regularly paid compulsory levies on private units to produce revenues to be spent

for public purposes” (Braun 1975: 244). As such, they can also be considered as part of the

state´s coercive capacity. The right to impose is a form of coercion because it takes away from

the population the right to decide on what to spend their money. Instead, they are forced to give

this money to the state who can decide how to use it and control how it is distributed. However,

because of their central importance in forming the state, literature has considered taxes in its own

dimension. This literature also considers that different types of revenue vary significantly in

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terms of their administrative complexity and their political implications (Liberman 2002). Some

taxes try to regulate or influence the population (like taxes on tobacco), others regulate,

intentionally or not, the distribution of wealth and income (tax on income) and some may have

political, economic and social functions, defining the degree of political participation of the state

in certain functions (Braun 1975). According to these authors, the revenue sources that are most

likely to capture concepts related to state capacity include income, property and domestic

consumption taxes. In other words, direct taxes. These taxes are not only administratively more

complex to manage, but they require greater coercion from the population because it directly

affects their budget.

Fiscal Aftershocks in Chile

In colonial Chile, earthquakes were used politically to claim mercy from the King of Spain,

who more than once waived the colony for paying taxes to help Chileans to finance

reconstruction. This shows how, from the beginning, earthquakes have had important political

and economic impacts in the country (taxes were still collected; but they were used to pay for

reconstruction of churches and public buildings instead of sending them to Spain). However,

with time, the responsibility of governments facing catastrophic earthquakes has changed

greatly, and also the logic of the “fiscal aftershocks.” In Colonial Chile, creole government was

concerned only with reconstructing the “symbols of power;” churches and public buildings.

Now, as we have seen through this dissertation, the state is seen as responsible for organizing

reconstruction and recovery for all citizens, even private buildings. Also, if in Colonial Chile

catastrophes were used as an excuse to avoid taxes to the Crown, republican Chile has seen

something different. After each earthquake, the state has gained power by increasing taxation on

the population. Most of these taxes were initially thought of as momentary, and yet, they became

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permanent. This ratchet effect that we have seen also happens with other institutional

developments, as has been explicitly described by Tilly about taxes created by war. Once a new

tax is created it is very unlikely that its creation will be reversed once the crisis is over. “When

public revenues and expenditures rose abruptly during war” –claims Tilly- “ they set a new,

higher floor beneath which peacetime revenues and expenditures do not sink” (Tilly 1985:180).

War making, claims Tilly, not only provides the main stimulus to collect more taxes at a specific

moment in time, they also set a new standard for acceptable taxation that remains after war is

over. This is what Peacock and Wiseman showed in their already mentioned 1961 book about the

United Kingdom, “people will accept, in a period of crisis, tax levels and methods of raising

revenue that in quieter times would have thought intolerable” (Peacock and Wiseman 1961: 26).

More recently, Legrenzi (2004) has also shown that, for European countries, society usually

tolerates a fairly stable government taxation, but during wars “and other major social

disturbances” these conceptions change. Also, these authors show that expenditure may fall

when the crisis is over, but taxes are not likely to return to old levels. Conclusively, we know

that wars are moments that destroy established conceptions of tolerable taxes, and generate a

displacement effect that increases revenue in the long term.

As I will show next, in our catastrophic examples we see the same effect. First, catastrophes

are moments of “disturbance” for the political equilibrium that defines taxes. After each major

event in the history of Chile new taxes were created, a clear example of state growth. Also, the

state has never taken a step back after developing new taxes to pay for the institutions that

manage catastrophe. On the contrary, taxes that were initially declared “reconstruction taxes” -

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this is, momentary taxes- were not repelled when the deadline came but instead parliament voted

to maintain them in the long term.44

1906 Catastrophe.

During Chile´s parliamentary republic, there was almost no direct tax to the population.

After the incorporation of Atacama region and its nitrate mines most of other taxes had been

eliminated. Public Treasury kept growing because of the steady influx of money from the nitrate

mines that signified 50percent of Chile´s income (export tax). Not even the haciendas paid any

property tax, even though agriculture was still the principal economic activity in the rest of the

country (Fernandez 2003). Also, whatever tax that remained had been transferred to the

municipalities in 1891 by the Law of the Autonomous Municipality. Municipalities, then, levied

property and other (albeit small) internal taxes. This included tax on alcohol (1892), tobacco

(1896), sealed paper (1898) and cars (1903). The first direct contributions at the national level

were created in 1915 (Fernandez 2003).

In this context, it is remarkable that the reconstruction law of Valparaíso (Law 1887)

authorized the city government to increase property taxes, and ordered the National Treasury to

collect these taxes in the name of the city. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the final renewal plan and

its new city map was not the expensive expropiation of all El Almendral that the neighbours

asked, but it was still an expensive plan. Streets had to be widened, new plazas were going to be

created, and all of this meant some expropriations as well as materials forthe reconstruction of

these spaces. According to the new law, the money forthese tasks wouldbe obtained by four

means. First, by the National Treasury, by the way of a loan to be used in the reconstruction of

44

Although, it must be considered that most of the taxes described in this section were cancelled during Augusto Pinochet´s liberal dictatorship in the 70s.

189

public buildings and to pay for expropriations (defined by the Reconstruction Board). Second, by

the property owners, who had to pay fifty percent of the money needed to rebuild their street

front, or choose expropriation of their terrains. Third, by the sale of expropriated terrains that

were not needed for new streets, plazas or public buildings. And finally, reconstruction had to be

paid by the Municipality of Valparaíso. For this purpose, the municiaplity was allowed to

increase property tax up to 0.5 percent. This money was used to pay the loans, loans that the state

had signed to be used in Valparaíso. Therefore, the state was considered a creditor of the

municipality. For this reason, when reconstruction of El Almendral was already underway, the

tax was reaffirmed; the municipality was allowed to increase property tax once more (0.3

percent), and double the tax on industrial and professional activities in the city. But furthermore,

it was decided that the taxes would pass directly to the state, as a way to assure the municipal

government was going to fulfill their part of the deal. So basically, the municipality paid for city

works, but it had no authority to decide what this city works were going to be. As I showed

previously, after the 1906 catastrophe the state took over city planning, and now we see that it

also took over city taxes. The effect, albeit momentary, can be seen in Chart 2.

Chart 2: Structure of fiscal income in millions Chilean pesos of 1995

Fiscal income

Tax Income

Direct taxes

percent of tax income that is direct taxes

1905 154419 132882 3 0.002

1906 181606 149289 0 0.000

1907 196299 157999 3 0.002

1908 193085 157170 71 0.045

1909 175063 151350 32 0.021

1910 194704 171604 4 0.002

1911 194832 185359 7 0.003

1912 236383 196253 0 0.000 Source: Made by the author with data from Braun et al. (2000).

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In conclusion, the taxes developed after the 1906 catastrophe were minor but significant in

the context of the parliamentary republic. Since in this period taxes to citizens were almost null

in the country, the increase in property taxes demanded by the state to pay for reconstruction is

an important development. It shows how there is a relationship between catastrophe and

extraction. But by 1906 the state was not yet seen as responsible for reconstructing private

houses; only streets, plazas and public buildings. In the case of Valparaíso´s earthquake the

novelty is that this meant a complete redesign of the city plan. But later, we will see that the

amount of tasks that demand state intervention increases and the amount of extraction needed

increases accordingly.

1939 Catastrophe

For center-left President Aguirre-Cerda it was clear that institutional developments such as

CORFO should be paid by taxes. This was his conviction even before the earthquake.

Consequently, when disaster happened and he proposed a bill to pay for the new institutional

developments it was decided that reconstruction was going to be paid in that way. Hence, the

same law that created the CRA and CORFO defined tax increases to finance them. The position

of the government was that to pay for reconstruction only through international debt was not

convenient, because the country will only be carrying debt for many years to come. Instead, they

argued that “this situation must be considered as provoked by a state of war and, as such, must be

financed with the resources of all citizens and those who reside in the territory.” (La Nacion Jan

30, 1939).

Consequently, the founding of CORFO contemplated a general increase in Income taxes that

considered: a two percent increase on income from property (2°categoría), 2 percent on Industry

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and Commerce (3° categoría), two percent on Mining and Metallurgic (4° categoría) and 1

percent on additional sources of income (5° and 6° categoría).45

Additionally, the inheritance tax

was increased by 50 percent and the law also created new taxes on agriculture and a new patent

for mining activities (amparo). As a newspaper at the time put it: “one can say that there will be

an additional tax, more or less strong, to simply every economic activity in the nation” (La

Nacion February 2, 1939).

This tax increase was defined as temporary, but in 1948 when the tax should have been

repealed a new law extended the period until 1958. In 1958, a new law made most of these taxes

permanent. We can see the effect in Chart 3, where it shows that the percentage of income tax

corresponding to direct taxes grew from 16.69 percent in 1939 to 20.51 in 1940.

Chart 3: Structure of fiscal income in millions of 1995 Chilean pesos

Fiscal income

Tax Income Direct taxes percent of tax income from direct

taxes

1938 452453 365780 61041 16.69

1939 494542 394826 56600 14.34

1940 500487 364025 74676 20.51

1941 533032 377864 73530 19.46

1942 488109 320378 71362 22.27

1943 591135 355827 80630 22.66

Source: Made by the author with data from Braun et al. (2000).

However, the Great Depression affected greatly the amount of taxes that the state could

collect with this reform (see table 4, total tax income actually decreased) and taxation was still

not enough. Hence, the law also authorized the President to ask for international loans of up to

two thousand million pesos. This money was to be shared by the CRA and CORFO with 50

percent each. Congress also allowed the executive to ask for internal loans of up to 500 million

pesos for the construction of housing for people affected by the earthquake.

45

There were several exceptions contemplated on these increases contemplated in article 39°.

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Conclusively, the 1939 earthquake had as a consequence a significant increase of direct

taxes. As we saw in Chapter 3, this was achieved with significant political struggle. But at the

end, the executive´s plan prevailed in most points. Once again, we see a clear link between

taxation and the development of new bureaucracies to deal with reconstruction and recovery.

Like with wars, the amount of taxes that is considered acceptable changes because of the

“moment of disruption.”

1960 Catastrophe

The 1960 catastrophe affected Chile in a completely different political scenario than in 1939.

Unlike President Aguirre-Cerda, right-wing President Alessandri was not inclined to increase

domestic taxes (Collier and Sater 2004). However, he was forced by the emergency to do so. To

pay for reconstruction, the same law that restructured the Ministry of Economy and

Reconstruction included a tax reform (Law 14171). Overall, The World Bank estimated that the

reform would collect 185 million of escudos over a five year period which meant 100 million

dollars extra for the Chilean state (WB 1961). This was an impressive sum (as a comparison,

copper mines produced 160 million dollars of profit in total). Unfortunately, it was not enough,

so congress authorized the government to ask for loans up to 500 more US million dollars in

international and national loans. Also, up to four fifths of the money that was going to be used to

celebrate Chile´s 150 years of independence was used for reconstruction (Alessandri 1961).

The reconstruction law (Law 14171) was very complex and included several regulations.

Firstly, the law declared what was the area of the country that was going to be considered as

“affected by the catastrophe.” Secondly, it allowed the state to ask for internal and external loans,

and to be guarantor of any loan subscribed by CORFO or the municipalities in the affected area

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(with approval). Thirdly, the law permitted the President to modify the National Budget of 1960

in order to use money for emergency management and reconstruction. Also, it demanded that the

National Budget included a “Reconstruction” item in the following two years. Fourthly, it

demanded that institutions in charge of retirements and pensions (prevision) to offer loans to

their clients in the affected area for up to one thousand escudos.

Fifthly, in terms of the tax reform, several changes were made. President Alessandri

concentrated efforts on avoiding evasion: the national tax office grew considerably, creating new

offices in other regions, and increased its attributions to include an office of tax prosecution.

Also, some parts of the system by which tax was calculated were changed. For example,

Agriculture tax was now calculated using air pictures to really measure the extension of the

plantations and not by estimates. Finally, against the President’s wishes, the law presented to

Congress by the executive raised several taxes: both the tax on Industry and Commerce and the

tax on Mining and Metallurgical activities were raised by 20 percent; property tax was raised by

23 percent for the year of 1960; several luxury items were now taxed with an increase of 10-15

percent, for example, jewelry, pianos, air conditioners, photo machines, yachts, among others;

there was also a new tax on nonalcoholic drinks (15 percent) and alcoholic drinks (20 percent);

new tariffs for automobile plaques, specially pickups; an increase of 100 percent in “public

entertainments” (with the expressed exemption of soccer games); among others. And finally, the

most controversial change of all was the increase of 1percent in the Social Security Taxes, both

in the public and private sector. This money went directly to the “Reconstruction Fund”

administered by the Housing Corporation (CORVI) and CORFO. This corporation, in return,

will use this money to create savings accounts for the workers, in order to help them obtain

houses in the future. It was forced savings more than a tax, but in the meantime it felt very much

194

as a tax (and it was used for reconstruction in the south). Finally, the law also suspended some

taxation in the most affected areas, especially fines related to unpaid property tax. It also allowed

the President to declare uncollectable the property tax of a citizen whose house was severely

affected by the quake.

Chart 4 shows the effect of this tax reform. As we can see, the percentage of fiscal income

that comes from tax increased from 65percent in 1959 to 95.5percent in 1961 and continued to

rise in the following years. This was not only due to direct taxes, but mostly because of the new

tax on copper, but the percentage of tax income that corresponds to direct taxes also increased

from 19.16 percent in 1959 to 25.66 percent in 1961. Some of these taxes were only supposed to

last three or five years, but as we have seen before, when the date for withdrawing the tax

arrived, Congress passed a law to maintain them.

Chart 4: Structure of fiscal income 1959-1964 in millions of 1995 Chilean pesos

Fiscal

income Tax Income Direct taxes

percent of tax income fromdirect

taxes

1959 1365837 888116 170199 19.16

1960 1090931 1030657 230765 22.39

1961 1144714 1093956 280679 25.66

1962 1222321 1156053 282654 24.45

1963 1200024 1137266 270356 23.77

1964 1217544 1157575 319438 27.60

Source: Braum et al.

The taxes covered only about 20 percent of the money required for reconstruction, so

Congress authorized President Alessandri to ask for the already mentioned 500 million US

dollars in loans. At least 100 million of these loans were petitioned to the US, as described in

Chapter 3. Consequently, eighteen months after the earthquake the external debt had increased

by 150 US million dollars (IDA 1961).

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Conclusively, the 1960s also saw an important rise in taxes. But this time, as we saw in

Chapter 3, President Alessandri tried to hide state growth as much as possible. In his tax reform

this is seen in the fact that he increased many taxes, but in a small way. Still, all cases show how

the need for money to pay for reconstruction led to the development of new taxes increasing the

capacity of the state to rule on its population.

STATE REACH

Finally, there is one more aspect of state capacity that is worth analyzing in this chapter. We

must take into account that state capacity may be unevenly distributed in the territory, as it has

been usually shown is the case for Latin America (O´Donnell 1993; Soifer 2015). This

unevenness is related to the notion of state reach, the “actual penetration throughout the country

and its capacity to govern society” (Yashar 2005: 6) or as Herbst has put it, the ability “to project

power over distance” (Herbst 2000: 173). And not only power, but also the provision of public

goods and the protection of legal rights can vary throughout the national territory (Soifer 2015).

Unfortunately, the ability of states to broadcast their power into remote territories can be strongly

constrained by rough physical geography, especially mountains (Boulding 1962; Lemke 1995).

State reach is therefore subject to a “loss of strength gradient” (Boulding 1962) in which capacity

is a negative function of distance from the state’s center.

In the case of Chile, even by 1960, some towns had never seen a state official, much less

public services, before the earthquake. This, in part, is due to the fact that difficult terrain

dramatically increases the cost of transportation, communication, and the location of state

services (Lemke 1995). This is why, following Herbst, I will argue that roads are vital to

exercising formal authority, and therefore we can look at road density as a measurement of the

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spatial reach of state agents and infrastructure (Herbst 2000; Soifer 2015). The increase of public

roads is theoretically accompanied by an expanded bureaucracy; with roads come police offices

(as shown in the previous section, new police stations were created in the territory after

catastrophes), schools, medical centers, the post and most critically, phone lines. This is why, as

Herbst (2000) has shown for the case of Africa, this increase of roads and transportation is a

proxy for state reach.

In colonial Chile, towns were extremely isolated from each other. Roads were incredibly

scarce and travel took very long because of the mountainous geography. About 57.59percent of

Chilean territory is mountains and the index of ruggedness is the strongest in the continent

(Soifer 2015). This does not mean that the state was necessarily weak, but it does mean that

roads were slow to develop. In fact, until the advancement of railroads the easiest way to travel

from town to town was by ship (Collier and Sater 2004). This situation changed slowly, and

earthquakes have been one of the forces driving it. As I will show in this section, an accelerating

building of roads and railroads has been a consequence of every catastrophic earthquake. Of

course, some of this is due to the rebuilding of old roads, but data shows that this is certainly not

all there is.

1906 Catastrophe

During the parliamentary republic, the dominant ideology was liberalism. If all

parliamentarians were in agreement with one thing, this would be that the state should interfere

in the economy as little as possible. However, the building of communicational infrastructure

was one of the few things that was ideologically correct for the government to step upon. But by

the beginning of the century this effort was not on roads, there were really only a few that were

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2290 2326 2329 2377 2474 2528 2646 2830

3120

4165

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912

Fiscal Rail Roads KM

not simply horse tracks. In fact, I could find no data on roads until later in the century. Still, by

the end of 1906 an “Office of Bridges and Roads” was created in the Ministry of Public Works to

improve the roads and clean up the one that united Santiago and Valparaíso that had been

severely affected by the earthquake. To look at this reaching effort with some data, for this

decade we have the alternative measurement of rail roads (Soifer 2015 has done the same).

Chart 5 / Graph 3: Fiscal Rail Roads 1903-1912

Fuente: Anuario Estadístico de la República de Chile, 1920.

Data shows that before 1906 fiscal railroads were growing on a rate of 29 km per year, while

the next 4 years this rate was 113 km per year. Still, it is difficult to know exactly what the

effect of the quake is. I have found no relationship with the reconstruction of Valparaíso; the

plan did not involve the construction of new rail roads. What we do know is that the earthquake

showed the state that there were important needs in terms of communications. And also, it might

be important to point out that the official budget of the Republic for the years 1906 -1910 had

the reconstruction of Valparaíso and the new railroads as one item (Humud 1969: 74).

1939 Catastrophe

Fiscal Rail Roads KM

1903 2290

1904 2326

1905 2329

1906 2377

1907 2474

1908 2528

1909 2646

1910 2830

1911 3120

1912 4165

198

41785 41785 41785

40771 40771

44440

45856

47314 47420

36000

38000

40000

42000

44000

46000

48000

1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

Fiscal Roads KM

After the Chillán earthquake there was an extensive program of rebuilding roads, and the

building of new roads as part of the reconstruction process. The numbers are telling. By 1940

there were actually less roads available than in 1939, because of the effect of the quake.

Newspaper La Nación protested that the earthquake had shown that in many places the roads that

existed were the same that the conquistadores had built hundreds of years before, and are “no

way near the contemporary standard and the needs of business and progress.” (La Nacion

January 31, 1939 “El problema de la Reconstrucción”).

Chart 6 / Graph 4: Fiscal Roads 1937-1945

Source: Braum at al.

After the earthquake, kilometers of roads increased substantially, because it was one of the

most important points of development determined by reconstruction. With these new roads, the

government was able to reach new towns and cities with services.

1960 Catastrophe

This catastrophe in particular had the effect of showing Chileans the important deficit in

communications that still existed in the country. Valdivia was completely isolated for more than

twenty four hours, with no connection to Santiago because bridges had collapsed. Other towns

Fiscal Roads KM

1937 41785

1938 41785

1939 41785

1940 40771

1941 No data

1942 44440

1943 45856

1944 47314

1945 47420

199

54442 54442 57906 56976

60018 59388 61380 62977 63432

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

1955 1955-1960 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966

Fiscal Roads KM

were left without connections to other cities for months (El Correo, Sept 22, 1960).

Consequently, the mission sent to Washington DC to discuss funds for reconstruction negotiated

a special development credit for a highway project.46

This was approved by the International

Development Association in 1961. It consisted in the new construction of about 950 km of roads,

the betterment of about 2,500 and paving of about 400, plus a bridge. All in the ten provinces of

southern Chile most affected by the earthquake, and especially those who had been isolated by

the effects of the quake (IDA 1961). The actual building of new roads due to this project is

reflected in table X.

Chart 7 / Graph 5: Fiscal Roads 1937-1945

Source: Braum at all

As we can see from the table, five years after the disaster there were 5,526 more kilometers

of public roads in the country, much more than the International Developement Association

project had contemplated. This shows the importance that it had for the government to expand its

reach in the territory.

46

As far as I have been able to gather this development credit is on top of the 100 million the Bank made in terms of loans for reconstruction. See: (IDA 1961).

Fiscal Roads KM

1955 54442

No data

1960 57906

1961 56976

1962 60018

1963 59388

1964 61380

1965 62977

1966 63432

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CONCLUSIONS

Earthquakes in Chile have presented themselves as moments of opportunity for state

building. We see that in dealing with these disasters, new institutions were created and

eventually became stable instruments of the state. This allowed the state to increase its ability to

serve Chilean society. Once this new institutional framework exists it functions to the benefit of

the Chilean state not only in emergencies but also in everyday life. I argue that this happens

because, like wars, catastrophes impose certain needs on states. Particularly, they impose the

tasks of protection from nature and reconstruction after these protections fail. Like in the case of

wars, this means that new state institutions must be created to solve these problems. In particular,

these institutions are taxes and new bureaucracies to deal with the problems left by the

catastrophe. As I mentioned in Chapter 1, there is a connection that goes from disaster

management to coercion an extraction, and this interaction has as a result state building, this is,

the development of new state capacities.

Also, I want to highlight that by the time of the 1960 earthquake the idea that the state is

responsible for catastrophe is completely settled. This can be seen in the creation of the different

agencies and laws to manage earthquakes, like the “constitutional 2percent” and the

“earthquake´s law,” that are seen as permanent and designed as tools for the state to deal with

new emergencies of this kind. As I have explained throughout this dissertation, we can clearly

see a path that starts in 1822 with the decline of the religious explanation, an idea that is

strengthened by 1835 and became consolidated from 1906 onwards. From then on we see that

every earthquake has pushed for greater state involvement (as the section on seismic codes

shows). In 1939 the state for the first time takes full responsibility for reconstruction. And

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therefore, by 1960 the issue is completely established; earthquakes are manageable and it is the

role of the state to do so.

However, a complete risk management perspective that focuses on the social conditions that

cause disaster, therefore in prevention, will not be completely established until the 21st century.

As I will show in the Epilogue, it is after 2010 that this view becomes the leading idea for

managing earthquakes. However, by 1960-70s we can see this new change of paradigm already

underway, as the creation of a National Office for Emergencies shows.

Overall, I will conclude that disasters force societies to confront nature, and it is in this

interplay between societies and its environment that the state finds a place to unfold.

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Chapter 5 | Epilogue

“The forces of nature have hit our country hard. And once again they test our

ability to face adversity and to get back on our feet. (…). Our history is full of

natural disasters that test the will, determination and solidarity that characterizes

us as a nation. But our history also records the strength and perseverance of our

people. As we have done before when facing difficulties, I have no doubt that we

will bounce forward once again.”

- President Michelle Bachelet, after the Catastrophe of 2010 in Maule, Chile.

I began this dissertation with a hypothesis: catastrophes and the process of dealing with their

consequences can unleash mechanisms of state-building. I hope I have been able to show that

this has been the case for the Chilean state during the twentieth century. As we have seen in the

previous chapters, after every major catastrophe of this century the state developed new

capacities that continue even today for the benefit of Chilean society. These state capacities have

been shaped as the direct result of catastrophe. However, in this concluding chapter, I will

analyze the limitations of this argument and the possibility for the opposite relationship; this is,

that catastrophes can lead to state failure. Certainly, the extreme case of this other possibility is

Haiti, a state that completely collapsed after an earthquake in 2010. By contrast, a few months

after Haiti, Chile suffered one of the worst catastrophes of its history, with the state once more

coping with disaster and organizing reconstruction. What can account for one or the other case?

The answer is in the pages of this dissertation; while Haiti is a weak state, Chile is a strong state,

and this is in part due to its earthquake prone history. Strong states cannot only bear disaster

better, but they also profit from catastrophe to gain strength. This has been the case of Chile, and

the 2010 Maule disaster is yet another example of this.

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In the following sections I will explore these issues further and use the comparison between

Haiti and the 2010 Maule earthquake in Chile as a guide to expand on some of the main

conclusions of this dissertation. The comparison will allow me to show how the consequences of

both earthquakes lie on decisions taken in the past and not in the earthquake in itself. This is, that

the catastrophe was man-made. More specifically, I will show that the crucial actor in creating

the disaster is the state. In other words, that “state makes catastrophe.” Secondly, I will show that

the opposite is also true, under the right conditions. The Maule 2010 earthquake in Chile is once

more an example of state capacities developing after disaster, even under a regime that does not

support state grow. On the contrary, the Haiti case shows that if a minimally strong state is not

present before the event the result of catastrophe may very well be state collapse. Finally, I will

explore the 2010 Maule earthquake in more depth to add some last conclusions about regimes

and their politics of reconstruction.

Haiti and Chile: A Tale of Two Earthquakes

On January 12, 2010 a 7.0 Ms earthquake devastated Haiti, killing at least 230,000 people

and leaving one third of the country´s population homeless (1.5 million people). The capital,

Port-au-Prince, suffered widespread devastation; hospitals, churches and schools collapsed, roads

were blocked with debris, and it seemed that all was reduced to rubble. Basic services were

almost completely disrupted, including water and electricity. Damage was truly catastrophic

(Margesson and Taft-Morales 2010). After this event, Pierre Desarmes, a Haitian musician based

in Chile, decided to bring his father, mother and two brothers to live with him in Santiago. What

he could not have known is that disaster was going to strike again. On February 27 of the same

year, another earthquake hit Chile, killing five hundred and leaving two million people homeless

(12.6 percent of population). The southern cities of the Maule province were severely damaged,

204

and the coast was destroyed by a huge tsunami. Pierre´s father, Joseph, told BBC network that

“you can’t imagine how I felt; how powerless I felt” when he had to face a second disaster in less

than a month. But he also described how in Haiti they got his family out of the ruins of his house,

while in Chile he could not believe how buildings around him had sustained the shock (BBC

2010). According to Pierre, Chile “it's a country that's prepared for earthquakes, it'll pass, it's not

so bad” (NBC 2010).

Furthermore, while Haiti´s earthquake lasted 35 seconds and was magnitude 7, Chile´s three

minutes quake was 8.8 Ms. Since magnitude scales are logarithmic, this means that the Chilean

quake was five hundred times more powerful than Haiti´s (USGS 2016). However, while the

Haiti quake left more than three thousand casualties (out of six million people), in Chile there

were only five hundred and fifty (out of sixteen million). Similarly, in Haiti the damage was

reported to be US$8 billion, a total of 110 percent of the country´s annual economic production

(Kovacs 2010); while in Chile the economic cost has been calculated to be US$30 billion,

accounting for only 15 percent of the GDP of the country (Meyer 2014). Moreover, magnitude 7

earthquakes such as the one in Haiti are not unknown in Chile, and never result in such tragic

losses. Data from the Chilean National Seismic Center (CSN) shows that in the decade before

2010 Chile had suffered two such earthquakes (7,7 and 7,8 Ms) with a total of 13 deaths (CSN

2016).

Many factors influence the amount of damage caused in each case. Geologists point out that

the difference is in part due to the depth of the hypocenters; while Haiti´s was mere 8 miles deep,

Chilean´s hypocenter was 22 miles in depth (USGS 2016). Also, the epicenter in the Haiti case

was barely 15 miles away of the major urban center, Port-au-Prince (pop. 3 million), while the

Chilean quake was 65 miles away from the closest city, Concepción (pop. 200,000) (USGS

205

2016). Another difference is regularity; Haiti is located in a region prone to earthquakes but the

tectonic features of the Caribbean are complex; there had not been an earthquake that strong in

two hundred years. On the contrary, Chile had suffered worst catastrophes in 1960, 1939 and

1906. Still, no one argues that seismology can completely account for the major differences in

terms of the impact, the fact remains that the Chilean earthquake was potentially much more

destructive and nonetheless caused considerable less damage (Salazar and McNutt 2011). As I

will attempt to show next, the real reason is historical.

As we know, disasters are a man-made phenomenon, even when triggered by a natural

hazard. This means that the effects will depend not only on the characteristics of the disaster

agent but more importantly on the vulnerability of the communities affected. In this aspect, Chile

and Haiti are completely different. While Haiti is a country extremely vulnerable to hazards,

Chile is regarded as resilient and prepared to face the risks posed by natural agents. What

accounts for this difference? Different reasons have been highlighted by researchers; but they all

point out to state capacities.

First, while Haiti is the poorest country of the continent, with 80percent of its 9 million

residents existing in poverty, Chile is the richest country in Latin America (U$ 1,300 GDP per

capita vs U$ 14,700 GDP per capita). As the literature has shown, this is a proxy for the level of

vulnerability of their societies. There is ample consensus that development (usually measured as

GDP per capita) is negatively related to the amount of damage and deaths of a disaster (Oliver-

Smith and Hoffman 1999; Albala-Bertrand 1993; Kahn 2005; Toya and Skidmore 2007). More

specifically, Kellenberg and Mobarak (2008) find evidence of an inverted U relationship

between levels of development and the effects of (socio-) natural disasters. To a certain point per

capita, damages rise with increase per-capita GDP, after which a country is less affected by

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disasters as it continues to develop (Kellenberg and Mobarak 2008). Conclusively, disasters

affect more powerfully the economy of poorer countries than more developed ones (Raddatz

2005; Mechler 2009; Loayza, et al. 2012; Noy 2009; Toya and Skidmore 2007). The reason this

happens is that GDP is highly related with the quality of institutions of each country. In other

words, it is related to state strength.

In terms of state capacities, I have argued before in Chapter 4 that the existence of seismic

codes is a proxy for state strength. In this sense, it is relevant that at the time of the quake, Haiti

lacked a national building code, and many structures were shoddily constructed since there is

widespread practice of self-building (Kovacs 2010). Taller structures were often built with

unreinforced support and heavy floors, which meant that almost all collapsed when subjected to

shaking. Also, few regulations in place did not have effective implementation or enforcement,

especially since there was no organism in charge of controlling this (Canadian Red Cross 2015).

This all meant that in Port-au-Prince most buildings suffered infrastructural damage, becoming

real death traps for their inhabitants (97,294 were destroyed and 188,383 damaged). By looking

at the evidence for Haiti it is clear that the lack of building codes is an indicator of state

weakness. Furthermore, government structures were heavily damaged or completely destroyed,

including the Presidential Palace, parliament building and the main prison. According to a Red

Cross report 17 to 20 percent of federal employees were killed or injured and about a quarter of

official buildings were destroyed (Canadian Red Cross 2015). This included several

congressman and 150 U.N personnel (Margesson and Taft-Morales 2010). In this context,

emergency activities were extremely difficult, especially because of the loss of personnel and

infrastructure that should have been part of the rescue effort. In other words, the state not only

collapsed as an institution, but was significantly destroyed even in terms of its materiality.

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On the contrary, Chile is the richest country in Latin America, with the soundest economy and

one of the lowest levels of poverty (7,8 percent). Coincidently, even though Chile is one of the

most seismically active places in the world, experts acknowledge that the country is a relatively

safe place. In Chile most houses were able to cope with the movement, including almost all

multi-stored buildings and especially those constructed after the 1930´s regulations were in place

(and its revisions in 1972, 1985 and 1990s). Reinforced masonry homes experienced little if any

damage, and even no structural damage from the huge tsunami. Still, 81,444 houses were

destroyed and 108,914 were damaged (a smaller net amount that Haiti). Experts agree that the

country´s rigorous and enforced building codes played a major role in the performance of its

built environment (Red Cross 2011; Kovacs 2010; Beittel and Margesson 2010; Salazar and

McNutt 2011). As the commissioner for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

argued: “Chile´s investment in resilient infrastructure, early warning systems and urban planning

have ensured that casualties have been low on this occasion despite the intensity of the quake”

(UNISDRAM 2015). Overall, it is clear that the amount of damage of an earthquake depends not

only on the level of development but also the quality of institutions. GDP per capita is related to

disaster damage because it is a proxy for human development. In this sense Chile and Haiti

clearly differ, while Haiti ranks the worst Human Developed Index in the western hemisphere,

Chile is fourth (IHD 2016).

Concluding on this issue, development levels matter because they are related with governance

capabilities, and together they determine vulnerabilities. This is the real difference between Haiti

and Chile´s earthquake. While Chile is a strong state, Haiti is a weak state. And this is what

explains why the earthquake “made” by each state had very different characteristics.

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This also explains why in Haiti government collapsed while in Chile it was able to manage

the shock. In the last five years Haiti had built a foundation for social stability; however, that

stability was fragile, and the disaster tested its capacities. With the help of the international

community, the Haitian government had made significant progress in recent years in order to

become stronger in terms of state capacity, and the World Bank was even working to incorporate

disaster risk management into Haiti´s overall development strategy. But this was in early stages

and focused on hurricanes, the most common trigger of disaster in the island (Margesson and

Taft-Morales 2010). Reports account that the earthquake caused a serious breakdown of social

order and the World Bank noted that “the earthquake decimated the government´s operational

capacities” (Kovacs 2010). Thus, some government officials continued to function in makeshift

conditions and President Preval operated in a room at police headquarters from where he

appealed for international assistance. In this context, U.S troops and UN personnel started

working immediately after the quake to ease the burden of the government and organizing

emergency response and the management of several governmental facilities, such as the airport

and port in Port-au-Prince (Margesson and Taft-Morales 2010). A month after the quake, Haiti´s

political stability remained fragile, but the United Nations was directing the on the ground

response for security and humanitarian assistance, having increased the overall force levels with

8,940 new troops (Margesson and Taft-Morales 2010). In the meantime, Haitian ministers tried

to address issues such as long term housing, delivering of food and water to thousands of

improvised camps. It was as much as they were able to do under the circumstances.

Another panorama was present in Chile after the disaster. In fact, one of the firsts actions of

the government was to announce that they will not be receiving international help until they

could evaluate what the needs really were; “we do not need any help from other countries until

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Onemi (National Emergencies Office) makes its own estimations of damage” claimed the

Minister of Foreign Affairs. Instead, the Chilean National Emergencies Office led the relief

operation and coordinated assistance. In addition, there were more than 16,000 Chilean military

personnel providing help and securing public order (Beittel and Margesson 2010). Also, the

government quickly worked to reestablish basic services and medical infrastructure and

equipment in the affected areas. Still, after a few days, the Chilean government did request help

from the international community, especially field hospitals, electric generators and mobile

bridges, among others. But no aid agency has taken responsibilities away from the government

but they were a complement to Chile´s rescue and relief efforts (Beittel and Margesson 2010). As

a result, ten days after the disaster, 90 percent of homes in the worst area had regular power and

water. Nonetheless, there were two aspects of the Chilean government response that were

criticized in Chile. Faults in the government communications network were exposed; the

government did not send a tsunami warning soon enough for people to escape, although most

evacuated the coast anyway. The second issue is the speed with which the Chilean government

deployed the military to repress crime in the disaster zone. But even with these early response

problems, international reports gave the Chilean government’s response high marks (Beittel and

Margesson 2010; Salazar and McNutt 2011).

Differences are also clear in terms of reconstruction. A year after the earthquake

reconstruction was still low in Haiti, thousands of people were homeless and only a small portion

(20 percent) of debris had been cleared (Rodgers 2011). Two years after the disaster, only 43

percent of reconstruction projects had been delivered (Goldberg 2012). According to the United

Nations Development Program (UNDP) “the country´s political instability before and after the

event contributed to this paralysis” (UNDP 2010). Even deciding which neighborhood should be

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cleared first was a slow process. As many researchers have declared, the Haiti earthquake was a

man-made disaster (Bellegrade-Smith 2011; Kovacs 2010). Of course, we know that all disasters

are truly social in their origin. But the Haiti earthquake has especially been regarded as a social

disaster because of the complete lack of preparedness of the Haitian state. According to

Bellegrade-Smith “the government, as a primary institution, grew increasingly weaker over the

span of two centuries.” (Bellegrade-Smith 2011: 265). This is why President Preval had been

focusing his government on two objectives: first, creating and strengthening institutions, and

second, to create jobs (National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction, Haiti). But experts

have highlighted that after the earthquake “the very presence of 11,000 largely American NGOs

–the highest such concentration in the world- impedes the proper development of state structures

and the healthy evolution of national institutions and the growth of Haitian “agency” in the first

place” (Bellegrade-Smith 2011: 266). This opinion is shared by other reports on the area, that

claim that “aid” further undermined the possibility of change in the island. In this context,

charity does not create jobs; on the contrary, it takes functions from those who need help and

spends a considerable amount of money in supplies and imported personnel instead of

reconstruction (Katz 2013). For example, only 6 percent of bilateral aid for reconstruction has

gone through Haitian institutions and less than 1 percent through the government of Haiti

(Provost 2012). Today the Haitian state is chronically underfunded, and more than 50 percent of

the government budget coming from international aid (Canadian Red Cross 2015). Also, the

cholera outbreak that began in October 2010 and killed at least 8.231 Haitians is believed to have

been introduced to the island by the U.S Nations peace keeping force coming from Africa

(Sontag 2012). Overall, it is clear that the catastrophe has not made the Haitian state stronger; on

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the contrary, it can be argued that the effect of major destruction along with the takeover by

international institutions has made it weaker.

In Chile, we know that something in this line happened after the 1960s earthquake, when the

World Bank and the International Development Bank forced the government to change its

strategy in order to accommodate their demands. But even in 1960, the Chilean government did

not let international aid offices to take over their core functions; recovery and reconstruction.

This was possible because the state had been strong enough to survive such an enormous shock.

In 2010, even though aid was received from some international NGOs and UN agencies, the

reconstruction plan and recovery phase were very much in the hands of the Chilean state.

President Piñera47

formed an emergency committee, appointing several government officials to

oversee recovery at the national level (Salazar and McNutt 2011). This committee had three

tasks: provide basic needs, ensure that everyone had a roof over their head, and find definite

solutions for housing (Salazar and McNutt 2011). To pay for this work the President enacted a

temporary tax increase on corporations to help fund reconstruction, and then made this increase

permanent. Also, they were able to draw on the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund

(Constitutional 2 percent) to finance this reconstruction Plan. As we know from the previous

chapter, this fund was created after the 1939 earthquake. Reconstruction even helped fuel

economic growth in 2010 to 5.7 percent (Meyer 2014). Also, most commercial and industrial

operations had insurance coverage that included earthquake damage (Kovacs 2010). Finally, the

government launched a housing reconstruction program to cover private losses (Plan de

Reconstrucción Terremoto y Maremoto del 27 de Febrero de 2010). According to a report

47

By the time of the 2010 Maule Earthquake President Michelle Bachelet was finishing his mandate and President Piñera was already elected as her successor. He took over the post in March 11

th 2016. Hence, while Bachelet was

in charge of the emergency, Mr. Piñera organized reconstruction. Unlike Bachelet, who is a socialist, Mr. Piñera represented the right wing coalition.

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published in 2014 by President Bachelet´s administration48

65 percent of families affected had

received subsidies for rebuilding or renewing their homes (Forttes 2014). The rest had not

applied or were out of bases for subsidies. Also, 90 percent of these projects had been finished

by 2014, and an additional 9,8 percent were being built. These numbers have been considered

good by authorities, even if the report also claims that there have been a lot of problems in the

way these subsidies were designed (proof of this is the 35 percent of families affected that were

invisible for the subsides and could not apply). But compared to Haiti, it is clear that the state

was able to manage the challenges of reconstruction. (I will address the critiques to this process

in the next section).

Additionally, Chile keeps learning how to manage emergencies and has increased its

capacities in this sense enormously. Like I showed in Chapter 4, this reconstruction process has

also led to an increase in state capacity in terms of seismic regulations and a Risk Management

Program. Every earthquake and catastrophe protocol in the country went through a complete

upgrade after the chaotic response in 2010. The National Emergency Office (ONEMI) –created

after a minor earthquake in 1971- has gone through a complete renovation process, modernizing

its protocols and acquiring new functions and even a new name as the Risk Management Office.

Also, in terms of technology, ONEMI has advanced enormously in the past six years in order to

monitor possible hazards in the country and calculate risks. SHOA, the Hydrographic and

Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy, has also gone through a complete renovation of

protocols and personnel, after the fatal lack of coordination in 2010 that cost the lives of around

300 people. SERNAGEOMIN, the National Geology and Mining Service, also developed new

capacities with the strengthening of its Volcano Network. Also, since 2011 there is a

48

After the 4 years of President Piñera´s rule in the country, Michelle Bachelet was elected again as President of Chile.

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multisectored Platform for Risk Management that created a new policy for the management and

prevention of emergencies (Política Nacional para la Gestión de Riesgos y Emergencias) and a

new plan of action for the same objective (Plan Nacional para la Gestión de Riesgos y

Emergencias). Finally, a law that concretizes this plan is in discussion at Parliament since 2011

and it is expected to be ready later this year (2016). This law contemplates a final renovation of

the National Office of Emergencies (ONEMI), doubling its personnel and giving it the mandate

to manage not only emergencies but also risk reduction, preparedness, education and resilience.

Also, it contemplates the creation of a permanent National Council of Risk Management that will

advise the Interior Minister on issues related with disaster management and the assignment of a

risk manager in all Ministries and Municipalities in the country. As a result of all these advances

in Chile´s institutional framework, during a more recent 8.4 Ms earthquake in Coquimbo region,

only 13 people died; evacuation was coordinated and highly effective; and no multi-stored

building collapsed.

What makes Haiti so Vulnerable and Chile so Resilient?

After this account of the differences between the Haitian and Chilean disaster, we are still left

with the question of what makes Haiti so vulnerable and Chile much more resilient. As I have

repeatedly argued in this dissertation, disasters are not acts of God or destiny, but the foreseeable

consequences of the social, economic and environmental characteristics of a society. In this

sense, the 2010 earthquakes are events that started at least five hundred years earlier, when the

colonization of both countries changed the patterns of urban settlement, construction materials

and created dangerous and vulnerable conditions (Oliver-Smith 2010). But in the case of Chile,

this was followed by the development of a stable republic and solid economy. And even though

its history has been marked by several catastrophes, these have helped the state to become

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stronger and better prepared for managing disasters in the future. On the contrary, Haiti’s history

is marked by tragedy. Once declaring its independence, following a slave rebellion in 1791, Haiti

has had a difficult time trying to consolidate a state, in part because the recurrent intervention of

foreigner powers (Dubois 2012). Thus, not even the recurrent existence of hurricanes had had a

positive outcome in state building (from 2001 to 2007 tropical storms left more than 18,000 dead

and 132,000 people homeless in Haiti).

In the case of Chile, some economists had argued that it is the country´s liberal economy that

protected it from the quake. According to Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens, Milton

Friedman saved Chile. “Thanks largely to him” –he wrote-“the country has endured a tragedy

that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse…It is not by chance that Chileans were living in

houses of brick – and Haitians in houses of straw –when the wolf arrived to try blow them down”

(Stephens 2010). By this he means is that the radical free market policies prescribed by Milton

Friedman´s “Chicago Boys” in the 70s are the reason for Chile’s resilience. However, his theory

lacks a basis in truth, not only because Friedman was ambivalent about building codes (Levi

1992), but because building codes in the country started decades before that, when a strong state

was being built (In fact, one of the last revisions of this code had been enacted during the

socialist government of Salvador Allende, after a minor disaster in 1971).

In conclusion, 2010 Maule earthquake is also an example of state building process.

Especially in terms of new institutions for emergency management and risk reduction, but also

because a tax reform was also enacted in this case (with the reluctance of the right-wing

government). The law to finance reconstruction (Ley de Financiamiento de la Reconstrucción)

contemplated a rise to the income tax of corporations (primera categoría) that went from 17 to

20 percent in the first year and 18.5 percent for the next two years. However, as in previous

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cases, a reform was passed in 2012 and the tax ended up being permanent. Also, a permanent rise

in the tax on tobacco from 60 to 68 percent was enacted. On the contrary, in the case of Haiti, a

weak state only became weaker after disaster struck. This is one of the most important

conclusions of this dissertation; one that we can summarize as “if it does not kill you, it will

make you stronger.” It takes a state has a modicum of capacities to be able to profit from

catastrophe. If the state does not survive the event, it is highly unlikely that it will bounce back

stronger out of the ordeal.

In the next section, I will discuss the 2010 Maule earthquake in more depth, in order to

understand better what this dissertation can tell us to study further disasters in the country.

The 2010 Maule Earthquake in Historical Perspective.

As we have seen in this dissertation, catastrophes are all extraordinary events, and as such,

they interfere with ordinary life, most social functions and political life. Also, we have seen that,

in Chile, this has led to different reconstruction processes; and each has been influenced by the

characteristics of the epoch and the ideologies of the regime in place. Thus, the 1906 earthquake

is a moment in history that allows us to better understand the parliamentary republic and its

power relations. The 1939 earthquake is heavily influenced by President Aguirre-Cerda´s

aspirations to set up import- substitution policies. And the 1960 is constrained by President

Alessandri´s reluctance on economic planning. This makes every reconstruction process unique.

However, there are some characteristics in common.

First, in terms of the seismic capacity of the country, every disaster was followed by

developments in building codes that made it less vulnerable to future earthquakes. In 1906 it was

the creation of the National Seismological Service that inaugurated this path of risk management.

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Then, in 1929 this was strengthened with the creation of the first mandatory building codes and

the review of these rules after the 1939, 1960, 1972 and 1985 earthquakes. As a result, in 2010

the country withstood the Maule earthquake very well. As I explained repeatedly in this

dissertation, enforcing seismic codes is a reflection of the strength of the Chilean state, and a

product of this earthquake-prone history. Thus, we see that the roots of resilience are historical.

Second, in terms of the role of the state, we see a clear tendency to add more responsibility to

it. As we saw in Chapter 2, in nineteenth century Chile catastrophes were still seen as not

manageable. Therefore, there was nobody to blame, at least on the ground. But as we move on in

history, the state got more and more responsibility in reconstruction and disaster prevention. In

1906, this meant only rebuilding public spaces; in 1929 and 1939 we see that the state started to

regulate private buildings, with the emergence of the first building codes. And furthermore, we

see a state that decided and planned the renewal of cities and towns. By this decade, the state is

seen as responsible for all planning and management of hazards´ consequences. By 1960 the

state is taking full responsibility for emergency services, for organizing help for those in need,

for the reconstruction of the cities and private houses, and even the reorganization of these cities;

without much questioning of its authority. And this is how in 2010 the state is forced to take all

responsibility for events, not only emergency management, recovery and reconstruction, but

more specifically for the occurrence of the disaster per se. President Michelle Bachelet and other

public officials had even had to face trial for their responsibility managing the disaster the night

of the event. What we see is the final state of a paradigm change that started in 1822, in which

responsibility is transferred from God and destiny, to society and specifically the state. As Moss

has explained it, in the twentieth century the state is seen as the ultimate risk manager. In

particular, he observes a dramatic increase in federal disaster relief in the United States, and an

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expansion in environmental liability on behalf of the state (Moss 2002: 253). As a result, the

federal government has emerged as pivotal manager of catastrophe´s risk. When everything else

fails, we turn to the state for answers. In the case of Chile, a risk management perspective was

not only in full force but it became institutionalized in the new responsibilities of ONEMI,

renamed Office of Risk Management and Emergencies, the development of a Policy and a Plan

for Risk Management and a Committee of experts on Risk Management and Emergencies.

In terms of emergency management, we can highlight that all previous earthquakes were

managed in the field by the forces of police combined with the military. The evaluation of the

military´s help has been controversial; rethinking about it sometime after, it is clear that abuses

were committed, especially in 1906. But even in 1960, population of Valdivia highly resented

the imposition of military rule for so long (Castro 2007). In the case of 2010, as I mentioned

earlier, one of the strongest critiques to President Bachelet´s management of the situation was

her reticence to send the military to the zone. As a consequence, the first 72 hours post disaster

were moments of strong anxiety for the population, since chaos and looting seemed to have been

abundant. This ambivalence on the role of the military is something that the Chilean state has

tried to fix with the new bill for Risk and Disaster Management that will clearly define their

functions in catastrophe and place them as an integral part of the Committees for Emergency

Management (COEs).

In terms of reconstruction, we see some clear patterns in the three first catastrophes. First,

there is an ideal of making things better that they were before. This is clearly seen in different

iconographies of the epoch; resilience has become part of the Chilean imaginary (Illustration 7).

The meaning of “better” is something that has depended on the epoch. In 1906 “better” meant a

more attractive Valparaíso, following the precepts of the “beautiful city” movement. In 1939 the

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emphasis was in building a “rational” Chillán, following the ideas of modern architecture. Then,

in 1960 the idea was to build Valdivia safer, and we see in full display what has been called here

a risk perspective. In 2010 it is not clear what better meant for the government, but I will propose

that the leading idea was efficiency. The government argued that no government has rebuilt

faster and more intensely that the government of President Sebastián Piñera. But the problems

with efficiency are clear; speed is not a value but a means to do something. And the results of an

efficient reconstruction plan are not always excellence and quality. Nonetheless, it must be said

that all reconstruction programs before the Maule earthquake were also criticized by the

population. It seems that it is impossible to do it quick enough and good enough for people who

have lost everything. This, I think, is expectable. But it does not mean that things cannot improve

even more for next time.

Illustration 7: Resilience in Chilean Imaginary

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Another important similarity of all three reconstruction processes of the twentieth century is

that they were led by a reconstruction agency. This agency was created with the specific purpose

to organize and coordinate reconstruction and recovery. In 1906 this role was at the

Reconstruction Board and the Port´s Board. In this case the new organization was not formally a

new state institution but it was subject to presidential approval and was in fact created by the

executive as it took over the process. In 1939 this agency was first the Corporation of

Reconstruction and Assistance, CRA, that took over the construction of houses; and second, the

Corporation for Development, CORFO, that led the recovery. In 1960 there was no new state

corporation, but President Alessandri gave the responsibility to plan to COPERE, a committee of

ministers and the president of CORFO, and the responsibility to oversee all the work to the

newly created office of Reconstruction in the Ministry of Economy and Reconstruction. By

2010, the particular response of the government was completely different, there was no

reconstruction agency after the emergency committee was dissolved. The reconstruction process

was entirely sectored, this is, each ministry had its reconstruction goals but there was no agency

designing, organizing and overseeing the tasks. For scholars who have studied this process this is

highlighted as the big mistake of President Piñera´s reconstruction plan (Sehnbruch and

Sangueza 2016; Forttes 2014). The lack of a central office in charge of reconstruction meant that

in the ground the efforts were highly uncoordinated, with sometimes two state offices duplicating

their work, or interfering in the work of the other.

Furthermore, in 2010 each state office had to work mostly with the same apparatus that had

been in place before the earthquake (Sehnbruch and Sangueza 2016). With this I mean that they

granted subsidies and benefits with the same criteria than before the earthquake. People had to

claim to be victims of the quake and municipalities would go and check their houses, but

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municipalities were overwhelmed with their own destruction and this process proved to be a

failure (Forttes 2014; Sehnbruch and Sangueza 2016). Furthermore, even for those recognized as

victims, the state´s resources available were very much the same as before the earthquake. This

meant that if you were categorized as middle class, you had no access to this help (Forttes 2014;

Sehnbruch and Sangueza 2016). These policies were characterized by two aspects: targeting and

outsourcing of public services. Reconstruction largely responded to the same principles, which

prove to be highly inadequate for reconstruction (Sehnbruch and Sangueza 2016). The reason is

that selectivity and targeting were based in a “poverty criteria”, but disasters not only affect this

population, they produce new vulnerabilities. “if standard allocation mechanisms are used, these

therefore do not take this new vulnerabilities into account.” (Sehnbruch and Sangueza 2016, p.

3). Therefore, Chilean economists Sehnbruch and Sangueza (2016) consider that a system of

social protection must be considered as an integral part of the new risk management strategy.

Overall, we see that even though the 2010 earthquake was a test for the Chilean state, and the

state was in good standing to pass this test, it is clear that this resilience and learning was more

prominent when we talk about prevention and emergency management than when we analyze

reconstruction and recovery. As the last report on reconstruction clearly stated, the Chilean

legislation is strong in terms of emergency management but norms about reconstruction are

mostly inexistent (Fortess 2014: 82). This is important because minor disasters happen

constantly in the country, especially due to earthquakes. For example, by the time this

dissertation was being written (2016) there were eight reconstruction processes active in the

country (including the one after the 2010 earthquake). And the problem these processes face is

that, in the absence of permanent norms for reconstruction, the state offices had to deal with

these extraordinary processes using ordinary means. Unfortunately, this has proved to be

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insufficient when dealing with catastrophe (or disasters). And in the absence of a policy for

reconstruction that is permanent, what we have is reconstruction processes that are unique and

shaped mostly by the ideas and ideologies of the government in place at the moment. In some

cases this has meant that government pushes for a stronger and more involved state, like in 1939.

In other cases, like 1960 and 2010, this has meant a less centralized response and a reluctance to

increase state capacities, especially in terms of extractive capacity but not limited to this aspect.

We can conclude once more that the consequences of disaster will depend not only on the

characteristics of the event and the fact that it tests the state´s strength but also on the

characteristics of the regime in place.

Finally, I would like to highlight that all these disasters are a good representation of how is

the state in a particular moment. As sociologists of disaster have argued repeatedly, disasters

should be considered as part of a developmental process, constituted by it, and not as an

exogenous event. All these processes of reconstruction then, tell as a lot about the societies they

happened. And this is one of the most fruitful aspects of dealing with disasters in sociology; they

are windows into the inner workings of societies. In the case of the 2010 earthquake, the tale is

one of a state strong enough to survive a major catastrophe, in great part due to previous

catastrophes. But it is also the tale of a right wing government that refuses to have another

CORFO, and instead designs a plan that gives attributions to the different ministries without an

agency for reconstruction. And finally, it is the tale of a strong civil society that demands to the

state more than in any previous earthquake.

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CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter we have seen how the ideas developed in this dissertation give light to recent

cases in disaster history. In particular, we have seen how the theory presented in this research has

limitations that can be seen exemplified in the case of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Also, I have

shown how the end of this story of repeated earthquakes in Chile can only be understood in

historical perspective. It is because this history that the country was prepared to face an

earthquake of such a magnitude.

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Conclusions | Catastrophe and the State

Throughout this dissertation, I argue and show that catastrophes have increased the strength

of the Chilean state. Then, I use this example to discuss a theory of catastrophes and the state that

allows us to understand this relationship. Thus, theoretically, the conclusion of this dissertation is

that “states make catastrophe and catastrophe makes states.” It is, as I have explained before, an

expansion of bellicists’ ideas about war and states. I see catastrophes as similar to wars in many

ways: first, they constitute a threat to the population; second, they leave destruction and victims

after they happen and because of this, they call for the state to interfere. This is so because the

basic role of the state is to control internal and external threats. As some other authors have

shown, nature has always been part of this program of control, but in the face of catastrophe this

relationship is much more clearly perceived. The cases presented here are testimony of this

relationship and its limitations. This expansion of Tilly´s argument is an important contribution

to sociology because it allows us to think about the relationship between threats and state

building in a broader sense. For Historical Sociology, this opens a whole new area of studies:

disasters. And certainly, the argument of this dissertation would be much enriched if work on

more countries and places were added to the literature. For disaster studies, Tilly´s framework is

a rich addition to its understanding of disasters, unfolding this relationship with the state more

deeply and given it a framework in which to analyze it.

As we saw in these cases, managing disasters was usually a trigger to create new state

capacities. Disasters were a test; they challenged state power and at the same time generated a

strong necessity for state intervention. In Tilly´s argument about wars we see the same

relationship. War made states and states made war, but which came first, states or wars?

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Taxation or bureaucracies? Extraction or protection?49

Wars helped Western Europe to build the

institutional basis of the modern state by requiring a degree of organization and efficiency that

only strong political structures could provide. These structures, if nonexistent, had to be

developed, sometimes in innovative ways. In countries that could not develop this minimum

institutional cohesion wars lead to chaos and defeat. But it is also true that those who managed to

profit from wars already had that minimal institutional capacity, at least to some degree. “Wars

provided an opportunity to those political organizations that are able to capitalize on it”

(Centeno, 1997). In the same way minimally strong states can profit from disasters, as racketeers.

Governments can put out different types of agendas ahead, even things that were unthinkable

before wars, like more taxes. But at the same time, weak states might just disappear into chaos.

It can be argued, then, that more than a stimulant; wars and catastrophes are a test of state

strength. Therefore, another conclusive finding of this dissertation is that we need a minimally

strong state to survive catastrophe and manage the situation, and only then an increase in state

strength is possible.

Additionally, we must take into account temporality. Recent studies in the bellicist literature

have made it clear that it is not just about what kind of war and what kind of states but also

when. In other words, we know that timing matters. As some studies have shown, if warfare took

place rather early, then the effect of war was different than when war came after a minimal state

existed (Centeno 2000; Eartman 1997). Various authors also point out to cultural factors:

available knowledge, ideas about governmental structures, examples to follow. All this should be

taken into account to understand the emergence of modern states.

49

As M.A. Centeno has put it: “wars can only make states if they are preceded by at least a modicum of political organization” Centeno 1997.

225

In this line, another important conclusion of this dissertation is that ideas do matter. As I

showed in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, ideas matter because they define problems, and as a

consequence determine the solutions that are open to decision makers. In this sense, culture is

very relevant when analyzing the consequence of disaster in the state. Only when a risk

perspective on disaster has been developed, the state is seen as responsible for disaster

prevention and management. But also, the ideology of the government in place defines strongly

what happens after catastrophe. In 1906, the earthquake is a good reflection of the political and

social relations in the parliamentary republic; in 1939 Pedro Aguirre-Cerda was able to put

forward his politics of import substitution, and in 1960 and 2010 right wing presidents tried as

much as possible to avoid state growth, since this was against their beliefs.

Conclusively, what we see is that catastrophes’ effect on state development can work in at

least two ways: imposing certain needs and being invoked to achieve political goals. These are

the two mechanisms that explain the relationship between catastrophe and state building.

Illustration 8: Mechanisms linking catastrophe and State Building

226

For one side, the catastrophe has its own agenda. Because of the tragedy, a strong state is

needed; or as a minimum, a state that is able to manage the emergency and oversee and organize

reconstruction. Also, the earthquake creates new needs in the areas of infrastructure, health,

transportation, among others. And this is—certainly—a task for the state. The second mechanism

is political; catastrophes are used by the government as an excuse for achieving goals. If these

ideas are predisposed to develop state capacities (that usually mean a bigger and more

controlling state) then the effect of the earthquake will be major. An example of this is the

creation of CORFO after the 1939 disaster that allowed President Aguirre-Cerda to start his

policy of import substitution. If, on the contrary, the government in place is not prone to have a

stronger state then the effect will be less prominent. It must be pointed out that these

mechanisms are not mutually exclusive.

Also in terms of temporality, it has been pointed out that a very different international

context is faced by states today, with external elements of state formation being predominant

over internal dimensions. Leander (2004) has shown how the main reason why the bellicist

argument does no longer hold is that contemporary state-building takes place in a globalized

context. Globalization alters the effects of war in the central dynamic that Tilly describes;

controlling capital today means access to international financial sources and is much less focused

on taxation. Moreover, the policy preferences of moneylenders like the International Monetary

Fund and the World Bank matter. As we saw in the 1960 case, the incorporation of these actors

in the reconstruction process meant a real change in President Alessandri´s politics. However, in

the 1960s the ideology of these moneylenders, under the Kennedy administration and the

framework of the Alliance for Progress, was in line with a stronger state. Today, on the contrary,

these institutions are more inclined toward privatization, deregulation and the reduction of

227

budget deficits. Because they have the money, these organizations have direct power to set those

policies. In theory, this could still prompt state development, but in practice –as the Haiti case

clearly shows- it has translated to a reduced capacity of the central state to buy support in their

populations. This shows how the trajectories of state building are informed by external

contingencies, especially those of global development. The result is that catastrophe and state

making no longer have such a positive relationship.

But this is not the only finding of this research; there are also important conclusions for a

wider theory of disasters as events. One of the first of these conclusions is that vulnerability,

because it depends on decisions taken before the catastrophic event, is historically produced.

People and things can be vulnerable to natural hazards, in the sense that they are susceptible to

damage and losses, but they can also develop capacities to sustain these events in a better way.

Related to the notion of vulnerability is the idea of resilience, defined as the capability of a

community or society to recover successfully from loss and damage. In a way, resilience is the

opposite of vulnerability, since a resilient system is also one that can stand the threat of a natural

hazard with less damage. As we have seen in the examples of Haiti and Chile, state strength is

related to both vulnerability and resilience. A strong state is less vulnerable (less damage) and

more resilient (quicker and better recovery) than a weak state. This means that the impact of

disaster depends on decisions and events made in the past; events that define that a state is weak

or strong, capable of surviving a disaster or not. In other words, we can conclude that building

state capacities is a way of risk management.

Also, this dissertation shows that to study vulnerability and risk is not be the only fruitful

approach for the Sociology of Disasters. It is true that disasters are socially constructed, but once

they happen they offer us a privileged opportunity to see the inner forces of society at work. In

228

this case, I focused on the state, and this approach allowed us to understand better the political

cleavages of different political moments in Chilean history, and the consequences that disaster

brought to this political system.

In terms of the contribution to sociological knowledge, this dissertation speaks to several

areas in sociology; the Sociology of Disasters, Historical Sociology and the sociology of the

state. First, this dissertation is a contribution to Disasters Studies, especially because it expands

the focus of the Sociology of Disasters beyond the emergency period and into the consequences

of catastrophes in the long term. Specifically, I show that it is fruitful to study catastrophes as

events. For the sociology of risk, disasters are nothing more than the consequence of the

foreseeable forces that constitute society. Without contradicting the core of this statement, I

show that disasters are in fact more than that. Once they happen, they are the end of the world as

we know it; they mark a before and after in history. This is why the event perspective should be

recovered as an important theoretical tool for understanding disasters. They may not be objective

events, as in external shocks, but they are focused occasions, and as such, they have

consequences for social life. Disasters as events mean that disasters are moments of contingency,

where instead of “returning to normal” a new normal arises. In this sense, we see that

catastrophes are momentous occurrences, where horizons enlarge and decisions that are taken

carry more weight than usual. Consequently, disasters are windows of opportunity for making

changes. Because the catastrophe imposes certain needs, these decisions have frequently meant a

stronger state.

However, it is likely that only true catastrophes have this effect on the state. Some smaller

disasters -that affect smaller areas or are diffuse events with no destruction of infrastructure- may

be less related with the development of state capacities because they do not push the state in the

229

same way. Still, we may expect these changes to occur in the city or town level. As I showed in

Chapter 3, for cities disasters mean critical junctures, moments when their communities are

forced to rethink the way they have been living so far. But if the disaster only affected a city or

small town it is likely that this will not have a great effect on the state.

Beyond Chile´s seismic history.

My analysis is based on historical methods, which proved to be very fruitful to understand

the effect of catastrophe on the Chilean state. The careful examination of historical sources

allowed me to capture the conflict and tension that arises after catastrophe, as well as the result

of these political processes in terms of state capacities. On the other side, it remains to be

clarified whether my findings can be generalized beyond the Chilean case. Undoubtedly, the

downside of this method is that it takes a lot of time to search and analyze sources; this is the

main reason this dissertation is, in a way, a one case study. True, there are five catastrophes

analyzed in depth, but they all happened in the same country. Further analysis incorporating

other cases, such as Japan or Turkey, would be very helpful to improve the theory and test it in

other contexts. This, unfortunately, was beyond the possibilities of one dissertation.

However, there are also some benefits of having done a comparative study across time but

within one case. To start, the method allowed me to isolate variables that are not related to

particular cultural differences. Also, the cases I have chosen are good not only because of their

significance in Chilean history, but because they are theoretically relevant to understand the link

between catastrophes and state-building. Finally, the method is adequate because it allows us to

study the cases in depth and see how mechanisms are at work. The depth and richness of a case

study would not have been achieved in another kind of study.

230

New questions

Finally, there are some open questions that this dissertation has pointed out for future

research. Mainly, I think there is a question on the demands and organization of civil society.

This research points out that demands on the state have been growing steadily with each new

catastrophe, to the point that after the 2010 earthquake the state took full responsibility for

rebuilding private houses, even in the countryside. Also, as I started to show with the examples,

catastrophes have been moments where new civil organizations were created, such as the

associations of property owners in both the Valparaiso and the Chillán earthquake. After the

2010 Maule earthquake this topic has been very salient, and explains to a great extent what has

been the approach of the Chilean case towards reconstruction. Additionally, it should be

interesting to study social capital in the wake of disaster and how this influences whether a

country, community or organization will be resilient enough to bounce back stronger, or not.

This should also be a fruitful issue to approach in order to understand the responses of the state

in a better way.

231

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